Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back
by El Pollo Diablos
Summary: This now a full, complete novel. Please read before it sinks to the bottom of the list. If I get good reviews I will write a sequel.
1. The Jedi Briefing

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

  
  


Part One

  
  


As he approached the new rebel base on Coruscant, the former Imperial home world, he looked at the former Emperor's palace. 'Former Imperial home world,' he liked the sound of that. 'Former Emperor's palace,' he liked that even more. He, admiral Jerad of the Rebel Alliance, had a new command post. One that had running water, air-conditioning, and none of those insane mosquito things. You haven't seen fury until you've seen a Wookie surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes the size of Blaster Pistols. His fellow officers didn't know how react when they had comfortable lodgings, and nothing to gripe about. You'd think they'd be happy when their wasn't a Death Star with its ray locked onto their buttocks; but they must like to complain. The spires of the palace were wonders of architecture, except for the one that was knocked down by an X-Wing doing a victory roll. Oh well, the view was good anyway. Now he needed to get back to his office and await Luke Skywalker. He needed to think how to word his briefing in the simplest terms possible. For one the best warriors in the Alliance, he had a poor education. Almost like he'd been raised by farmers. 

  
  


Anyway, he was glad to see that his underlings had set up a guard post. Most Rebels were discontented citizens with no formal military training. There was a short line of Rebels waiting to gain entrance to the palace. They were required to hand over their weapons. Hmm... a paranoid officer set up this post. Having a command post full of unarmed officers was too good a target for an Imperial raid. He'd have to set them straight. At the front of the line there was an argument. Stepping out of line and walking forward to investigate it he saw a Rebel refusing to hand over his Blaster Rifle. The guard made a grab for the Rifle, the Rebel responded with a fist to the guard's face. The guard went down, but he had a partner. With surprising speed the Ewok jumped on top of the Rebels shoulders. With a flury of punches and a choke hold of his feet around the Rebel's neck, the Rebel fell down giving a pathetic wimper. The Rebel was probably someone they rescued from an Imperial holding cell. Well, now he'll have to wait for the Imperials to rescue him from a Rebel holding cell. There is no screening process for Rebels, we take who we can get. So maybe it isn't such a bad idea that they shouldn't be armed.

  
  


After a short wait he was through. He kept his weapon. The pendants of his uniform had been enough for the guard to know that he shouldn't mess with him. Smart man. One of these days he should glue a number of bottle caps to a bare uniform and see if it gets him past the guards. Now he was strolling through the many hallways of the palace. Rich, elaborate portraits of former emperors in their scenes of glory were already defaced and vandalized. He didn't have a clue where he was going. He should have brought a map with him, the palace was so large. There were some soldiers in front of him. Maybe if he eavesdropped he could figure out were he was.

  
  


"I hate going to briefings now, since the Stormtroopers suddenly became competent."

"Yeah, all of the sudden they started to use formations, became disciplined."

  
  


"They can aim now. I can remember when Nybar used to do the mating dance when in the middle of a fire fight. It really angered those Stormtroopers. What happened to the good old days?"

  
  


"Their bright white armor is no longer a liability. They used to stick out so well."

  
  


"What happened?"

  
  


"I still can't understand it; their armor is reflecting or absorbing our Blasters!"

  
  


"You're serious, aren't you? I've heard that we're no longer winning shoot outs when we're outnumbered 3 to 1."

  
  


"Now how are we supposed to win a war against a better trained, better equipped, more numerous force? Tactics and intelligence?"

  
  


"I don't know; but there's longer any joy in learning the next target that must be gloriously taken. Not since there's a chance you can be killed."

  
  


"There's the medical ward, should we stop in on Biggs and Wedge?"

  
  


"No, it's better just to get the next assignment over with." 

He'd heard about the Stormtroopers from military intelligence. The Imperials gave the Stormtrooper suit a signifcant upgrade: They cut eye holes in the helmet. Okay, now he knew where he was. He should see Biggs and Wedge. The idiots were lucky they weren't dead. Stepping into the medical ward was always depressing. Seeing the pale eyed, bleeding Rebels was an unwelcome reminder of the fact that he could be next. Biggs and Wedge were lying on beds, side by side in the far corner. He passed a pillar bearing a sign reading, "Burns Section; no smoking please." Wedge's X-Wing had been hit by a burst of Tie Fighter fire and a coolant line had ruptured. He'd caught fire and was only alive by the fact that his sqadmate took out the Tie Fighter before it made another attack run. That's what happens when you forget to raise your landing gear. He had significant dermal regeneration, and was recovering quite well. The nurse must have given him something powerful, he was staring at the white tile ceiling with a goofy smile. He wasn't even sure if Wedge knew he was there. He turned his attention to Biggs, who was sitting up, looking at him.

  
  


"So soldier, how are you recovering?"

  
  


"Excellent sir, I'm looking forward to another mission."

  
  


"I'm not sure whether you'll get your wings back. That was a pretty stupid stunt you pulled."

  
  


"Sir? If had been successful, I would have had an unobstructed line of fire with the destroyer, without being detected!"

  
  


"You pulled a 15G turn in a Y-Wing, while in the atmosphere of a gas giant! You're the only pilot I can remember that destroyed his own craft without anything touching it! When you're released, you'll be sent back to the training academy!" He wasn't going to, he needed every pilot he could get, but he didn't like Biggs, and wanted to rattle him up a little. As he turned to leave, Wedge tried to salute, but aimed too low and ended up karate chopping himself in the neck. The poor little fools. Now he had to get back to his office for the briefing, he was running out of time.

There were so many stairs. Why had the Emperor not bothered to put an elevator in here somewhere?

  
  


He had called the entire Jedi academy for this briefing. His disliked Jedi, they were all so idiotic. Even the Dark Jedi were idiots. Darth Vader had been the greatest boon to the Alliance possible. His strangling of Admiral Nyraeg for a personal slight guaranteed the Alliance victory over the two Death Stars. It's was like the force chose to be found in the least practical minds. 

  
  


Well, at least until now. Now the Emperor's son was the new greatest threat to the New Republic and the Alliance. From what intelligence reports indicated, he was disowned by the Emperor and sent to be a Stormtrooper. That was before he discovered The Force. Using it, he had worked his way up to commander, without his father's knowing. Upon the Emperor's death he became an admiral, and a good one at that. He knows nothing but military tactics and how to bend The Force to his will. He reportedly designed the Empire's version of the Millennium Falcon, that were chewing up his X-Wing squadrons. He is able to take command of any willing mind on board his flagship, the Aetius, giving him unequaled efficiency. Who knew what other devious plans he was concocting? He was assembling almost the entire Imperial Fleet to retake Coruscant, so he needed his own, feeble minded Jedi to deal with him.

  
  


Now what he do if he had the powers of a Jedi? If he was a teenager being able to move objects (such as dresses) with thought, and have the ability to control minds would have very useful. Being able to choke people at will, or shoot out lightning from his hands seemed appealing now. That would get his subordinates in line. Good thing he didn't have the force, he'd cross over to the Dark Side so quickly he'd be out of breath and wheezing like Vader. The very first thing he'd do, though, would be to kill every single one of those Jar-Jar-Binks creatures. He'd probably create his own Death Star to do that. Naboo would be vaporized. Good thing he didn't have the force. What did Jedi do when they retired? He could imagine them on some lonely world, living in a hut, using their lightsaber to chop fire wood. He'd have to ask Luke sometime, but not now.

  
  


He was at his office now. The Emperor's study. Quite roomy. It was the best room in the palace, certainly better than Kirag's office. It was the Men's room in near the interior guard post. Apparently the study was being rewired, for R2D2 was there beeping about all those open consoles. He didn't like those droids, they were always tipping over. Maybe they had an alcohol problem. Then he noticed is secretary coming towards him. He liked to think he had one of the more attractive secretaries in Rebel Command. As she passed R2D2, it let out a loud 2-tone whistle. Its viewing piece rotated to follow her as she passed. Then it followed her, its viewing piece no more than 20 centimeters behind her. Thoughts of court martial for the droid ran through his mind, as R2D2 took a sharp right and began working on another console. It must of been in his head, it must have.

  
  


A loud yell from the adjacent room told him that someone wasn't agreeing with their new protocol droid. C3PO wasn't making any friends. That was to be expected; but the Scottish highlander yell, the crushing of metal, and a garbled voice saying, "Oh dear," was not. R2D2 joined him in investigating what was going. He saw that Commander Yesat had just thrust the butt of a Blaster Rifle in C3PO's face. He got good thrust in too, the rifle up to the trigger was embedded in what used to be C3PO's face. He was ashamed that he hadn't done it first. Maybe he'll give a medal to Yesat for that. R2D2 came in, gave an angry beep and stuck a prod into Yesat. He released a series of electric pulses that went into Yesat, through the Blaster Rifle, and into C3PO. "R2D2, you're a miserable, beeping pile of back wiring. If you don't get me out of this, I'll have your neuro processor as an X-Wing wheel jam," C3PO wailed. At that R2D2 let out a huge electrical discharge that finally separated the Blaster Rifle from C3PO's face. 

  
  


Major Kirag walked into the room tell Admiral Jerad that the Jedis were here. He saw two droids fallen over, smoking, commander Yesat lying on the floor spasming beside a Blaster Rifle, and one Admiral Jerad laughing hysterically. "Maybe I won't tell him in person. Yeah, it'll be safer if I tell over the intercom. Yes, safer," he thought.

  
  


A few seconds later, over the intercom, "Admiral Jerad, the Jedis are here. They're in your ready room." Turning his sight from the comical scene in front of him, he had business to attend to. In his ready room was Luke, and two dozen other Jedis, and Jedis-in-training. "I've called you all here because of the Emperor's son, Lerutan. Under his leadership the Empire is on the offensive, and preparing a counter attack to retake Coruscant."

  
  


"Lerutan has made quite a disturbance in The Force; he is far more in tune than his father," Luke interjected.

  
  


Whatever, "This will be the decisive battle of the rebellion. If we win, it'll speed up the destruction of The Empire by 20 years. If we lose, the rebellion will be back where we were before the first Death Star. Lerutan's flagship, the Aetius, will be docking at Meru in the next few weeks to rearm. Meru is deep in Imperial held territory. How many Jedis and Jedis-in-training are there in your academy?"

  
  


"Eight full Jedi's and 23 Jedi's-in-training."

  
  


"That's a lot; I though you could only train one Jedi at time?"

  
  


"I've had to bend a few rules to reconstruct the order."

  
  


"I'm assigning all the Jedi competent enough not to impale themselves with a lightsaber to go to Meru, covertly, and stow aboard the flagship. There, during the upcoming battle they will sabotage the flagship and destroy Lerutan."

  
  


"Sorry James, I guess that means you can't go. "

  
  


"It was only once; I recovered! One end of a lightsaber looks like another when it's turned off!"

"I supposed you don't want to Leon to participate either. I caught him shaving himself with his lightsaber."

  
  


Jerad just stared blankly at the Jedis for a time. They were even dumber than he thought. Can't stand talking to them, can't win the war without them; what a situation. Leon did have one of the best shaves he'd seen though. "All competent Jedi, except Luke, are to participate in this mission. You'll meet back here in four days for a more detailed briefing, as intelligence comes in."

  
  


"Why am I not to participate? You know I am the only one who stands a chance against Lerutan."

  
  


"You are a symbol of hope for the New Republic and the Rebel Alliance, we can't risk your death. And, well, this is a suicide mission. Lerutan doesn't need to be killed outright, we just need to destroy the ship, and he'll go with it. Luke, I need to you to lead Rogue Squadron for the upcoming battle. I doubt either Biggs or Wedge will be ready. I'll trust your word not to disobey orders. Dismissed."

  
  


With that they left, somber, joyless. Such was the reality of war. From the way they act, he sometimes thinks he's in some magical kids' movie. He needed a break, and a Corethian ale. Maybe a week with his family would do him good. 

  
  


He turned on his intercom, "Admiral Jerad to Commander Weshan, the Jedis have left. From the sound of it Luke'll be a hero and go to Meru. Assemble a raiding force to extract him should he do so. Admiral Jerad out." Maybe he should have checked to see if Weshan was listening. Eh, he'll do it later.

  
  


Well the day's work had been done, he could relax now. Just then the intercom came alive, Kirag spoke, "Sir, a Hans Sulu (sic) and a Wookie are here to speak to you about their fee."

  
  


"Tell them to come back tomorrow."

  
  


"I tried sir, but... well you better see for yourself." On a nearby view screen came the image of a Wookie with a guard in a headlock in each arm, and its foot resting on the chest of a third guard. His growling was holding back another dozen guards. "Sir, I don't think they'll take no for an answer."

  
  


"Very well, send this Hans Sulu and his Wookie in." It was a long day, about to get longer. Wookies didn't take showers very often.

Elpollodiablos@hotmail.com

  
  



	2. Stormtrooper Patrol

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

by El Pollo Diablos

  
  


Part Two

  
  


She took a moment to watch the double sunrise of Ru. Despite the common misperception, the two suns rose in unison, creating a beautiful pattern of light. Another day on the Imperial, formerly Rhodian, colony of Ru. The base was a hive of activity. Some Stormtroopers marching in drills, others doing stretches in full armor, and yet others doing target practice. There was something about Stormtroopers doing toe touches that seemed so funny; the armor didn't overlap correctly in the back. Commanders in black battle armor strut about inspecting assembled ranks. Trust Darth Vader to take the relatively bland officer's armor, add a cape and his own personality for a truly fearsome presence. One officer was hopping about in half armor, trying fit on boots. They just didn't have the same effect that Vader had.

  
  


She was waiting for a replacement for her squad. She had worked ten long years to earn the rank of Sargent, and the bronze pieces of armor on her shoulder that went with it. Now she had to retrain another rookie, great. Well, no point in wearing this uncomfortable helmet yet. Ah, much better; these suits weren't well ventilated. Most likely she had serious case of helmet hair. The Chariot containing a half dozen new recruits pulled in. A small hovercraft platform with a semicircular guard around the front half, such a robust simplicity. Kind of like the guards, simple. They were asleep at the post. They didn't bother to raise the beam that blocked the entrance, and the Chariot rammed through. It landed and the recruits scattered to their new posts.

  
  


"Private Michael Lindson reporting for duty," he said while saluting. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had bothered to salute her.

  
  


"At ease soldier. I'm Sargent Harria Zofsky. Let show you the bane of your existence for the next few months, Delta Base," she replied. He was only 18; they were getting younger and younger. 

  
  


She showed him the barracks, with it's still sleeping ranks. The armory, with a bunch of I.O.U.'s taped to the door. Half were from the soldiers and half were from the suppliers. The mess hall, which was hosting a karoke night that stretched into the morning. The closed vehicle hangar that the base commander had lost the key for. The communication array, which had the satellite facing down instead of up; Imperial Engineers. The airbase full of Tie Fighters all lined up in rows. It was supposed to be good for preventing sabotage, but the Imperial Engineers had already sabotaged them in the last round of upgrades. The Tie Fighters should be twice as fast, with more armor, if they could fly. The officers quarters, most of its occupants too intoxicated to throw the dice into the right end of the cup as they gambled. They ended up at the shooting range. "Today's execution is a local Rhodian that was planning a revolt. We usually have an execution at 6:00." The Rhodian was tied to a post in front of a well blasted titanium wall. He was taunting the firing squad. The green, scaly, antennaed creature was shouting in own language so fast she couldn't translate.

  
  


"It's 6:15."

  
  


"We usually let them sweat for 15 minutes of helmeted target practice." The dozen lined up Stormtroopers all had their helmets on, and whenever the officer gave the command, the shots went wild. After 15 minutes of continual firing, the Rhodian was unharmed.

  
  


"Stormtroopers, helmets off! Ready, aim, fire!" a hoarse officer shouted. At that the Stormtrooper tossed their helmets to the ground and fired 12 shots into the Rhodian. A sizzling sound along with a smoking body greeted their senses. She wanted to know why only the Rhodians smelled and looked like cooked chickens after shot with an energy weapon. Mmm.... chicken... rations just didn't cut it.

  
  


"There are two races of Rhodians on this colony, the regular green ones and the yellow ones. We referred to them on the base as regular and extra-crispy."

  
  


"Don't you think to that remark was speciest?"

"No, the Blaster Rifles don't care who they kill."

  
  


"Has anyone tried to negociate with the Rebels?"

  
  


"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, no. Anyway getting back to the tour. The two targets to the right are used for regular target practice. One is 20 meters wide and the other is 1 meter wide. Guess which one we shoot at when we have our helmets on. "

  
  


"The big one?"

  
  


"Correct. Now take a shot at it with your helmet on." He took a shot at the large target and hit the smoldering Rhodian. "Now take your helmet off and aim at the small target." He hit the outer edges of it. "Now take off your wrist armor and hand it to me." She took out her combat knife and sliced out the metal plate, while keeping the white shell mostly intact. "Now put it back on and try again." He hit the bull's eye. "It took the Imperium 30 years to discover that. Now I'll make an improvement of my own." She took his helmet and quickly punched, with her fists, two eye holes.

  
  


"That armor's not very strong," Michael said rather surprised.

  
  


"No, no it's not. Once though, before we learned to make this 'upgrade' my squad tried to compensate for the warp of the helmet with the warp of alcohol. The theory was that if we ingested just the right amount, the two warps would cancel each other out."

  
  


"Did it work?"

  
  


"Everybody except Crassus couldn't hit anything in the next battle, which was the usual. Crassus had just enough and took out 12 rebels out with 12 shots. After the battle Major Sulla tried to congratulate him, but chewed out Crassus for his intoxication. Crassus threaten to use his Blaster Rifle in an... unorthodox way. Sulla was so angry he tried to shoot him, but he had the safety on. He's always hiding during battles. So he threw the pistol at him. Hit Crassus right off the head and took him down."

  
  


"That sounds like quite a tall tale." 

  
  


"Believe what you want, but Crassus has 12 more kills than a Stormtrooper usually has. Enough of this chit-chat, we've got a mission to start: We're patrolling the Teer sector for any suspicious activity. Our Chariot is in the ditch to your right. Don't ask why, it's a long story."

  
  


"Don't Imperial patrols consist of six soldiers?"

  
  


"Normally, yes. But the rest of the squad is in the field hospital. Crassus has Wookie fur mites, Green ate a Razorback whole, Marius made a pass at me, and Johnson ran into a wall. It's another long story."

  
  


They dragged their Chariot out of the ditch and checked it over, it's in fine working condition, only a few disrupter holes. Michael asked another question, "I don't know the Rhodian language, does that matter?"

  
  


"Yes, but you'll learn Rhodent in no time at all."

  
  


"Do you mind if I drive? I spent most of my training in the academy as the driver." He didn't seem to notice the holes. Michael drove them out of the base, the guards still asleep at the post. They set out into the wasteland. It was all dirt, mud and rocky outcroppings. The odds were that nobody was smuggling weapons in through here, it was too exposed, but it was better than patrolling the forest. "Do you mind if I turned on the radio?"

  
  


"Radio? What new jargon is that?"

  
  


"It's an old piece of technology, but I learned that the Chariots are still equipped with it. Ah, here it is." Static crackled through the air. "Could you adjust the tracking? When I was in the academy, we set up a space beacon that played our favorite tracks. We should be able to pick up on its signal."

  
  


She looked in the area of this 'radio' and saw a dial. It was marked 'volume,' maybe that was it. The thundering static bounced through her head. The helmet did nothing for blocking this. Michael quickly turned it off. "This is how people communicated centuries ago? This 'music' must have gave people brain damage," she said with the 'music' still vibrating in her ears.

  
  


Michael just couldn't seem to stay quiet, in a few minutes he started up a new conversation, "Do you think I can hit that creature with the Chariot?"

  
  


"That Razorback is only a few centimeters tall and this is a hovercraft. You'd have to get too close to the ground." She should know, she spent her first few months trying to hit them with a Chariot. 

  
  


"That sounds like a challenge. Yeehawww!" A bump and small skid later, the Razorback was unharmed and she was reconsidering her new recruit's sanity and her own. In a another few minutes he piped back up, "So what part of the academy did you like the best?"

  
  


It was so long ago. She was in the academy for the usual period of five years. Imperial soldiers had much more training than most people realized. "I enjoyed the Tie Fighters, but I just couldn't figure out how to land the thing." That wasn't entirely true. She had landed it once, on her instructor. And considering he was in the control tower, that was quite an accomplishment.

  
  


"They've redone the Tie Fighter. The new models come with tachion flux reducers, plasma injectors, landing gear, and cup holders. They also installed an autopilot for landing and takeoff. I never was good at piloting combat vessels. I was best at transport, communications, and medicine."

  
  


"Then why aren't you a medic?" She was afraid to ask, but it couldn't have been worse than her attempt a medicine. According to her medicine instructor, it was the only time he'd heard a cadaver scream. However, she excelled at ground combat and became one of the noble, elite, glorified Stormtroopers. Well, if you're going to have delusions, why not go for delusions of grandeur? They were far more satisfying than delusions of adequatecy.

  
  


"I kept forgetting to give the patients anesthetic." The more he said, the less sure she was the Empire would survive. In another few minutes the communicator came alive. It wasn't a face she recognized, but Michael did. "So Hugo, how are you? Either you're the best hacker in the Empire, or you've already made..."

  
  


"Keep your eyes on the road!" she yelled as they raced towards a boulder. After a few seconds, the dust cleared and she was lying on the ground, staring at the suns. "So there's an entire academy of people like you? No wonder we're losing the war."

  
  


"Ugghhhh?"

  
  


She surveyed the damage. The Chariot was fine, it just had a dent in it. She half expected it to explode for no reason. Michael was getting to his feet. "As you will notice, our suits are now filthy. Imperial Command calls it 'adaptive camouflage armor.' Two hours after every mission is spent cleaning these suits. I'm going to drive now." 

  
  


They had toured the badlands long enough, now it was time to tour the city. They were more likely to find something of interest there. Turning the craft around, she decided that this kid needed experience, fast. Time for her to pass on her wisdom, "When you're in a battle just remember to follow your fear. It's smarter than you are. Just keep it from manifesting itself in your pants. I'm it gets to be all becomes too much, then write. I prefer prose; poetry has poor grammar." That was the sum of her experience. It worked. 

  
  


"How do you deal with Jedi?"

  
  


"You don't, you run. I was witness to a Jedi battle once. It was in the command post on Herath. Darth Liche was battling some Jedi girl. My squad was called in to aid Darth Liche in eliminating the Jedi. Eliminating a Jedi, with Blasters? What a joke. We all just stood back and watched the fireworks. It was quite on a show on thermal vision. Green was sitting on a crate, eating his rations like popcorn. The rations taste like Blaster power cell paste. I switched them on Johnson once; he didn't notice. Anyway, after Green finished his rations, about 10 minutes later, they were still going at it, he shouted at Darth Liche, 'Why don't you just use the force to flick her lightsaber off?' Five seconds later Darth Liche was victorious, but not feeling too smart. None of the Jedi are really smart. I kept her lightsaber as a reminder. At least, I did until Hojo thought it was a flashlight. You were sent to replace Hojo, who was sent to replace Clerc, who was eaten by a tree. That reminds me, watch out for the trees on Ru, they've eaten a dozen Stormtroopers over the last month." Michael look like he had just violated the manifesting part of her aforementioned wisdom. Poor little fellow, but he needed to be educated before he wound up with a hole in his head, or worse yet her's. "One last bit of advise, never let the enemy have the element of surprise."

  
  


They were entering the outskirts of the city when the Chariot's engine died for no reason. Stopping, she and Michael got out and looked at the engine. That's when she felt something jabbing against the back of her neck. Turning around slowly, she saw a dozen Rhodians with disrupters aimed at them. Surprise. Slowly she set down her rifle, as the lead Rhodian spoke, "Gee naw fer a jo va feen ack quen tu! Bheg hu da wri ketaw?" That remark about her mother was uncalled for. 

  
  


"I take it the Imperium is no longer welcome on this world," Michael said weakly. He tossed down his rifle too. The smartest thing he did all day.

Elpollodiablos@hotmail.com


	3. Retaking Colony Ru

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

Part Three

The picture of Emperor Palpatine was staring at him. The eyes stared at him with all the red hot anger and malice of someone who'd been on the toilet for a half-hour. That's his father alright. The miserable person who named him Lerutan. He threw another dart into his picture. Another emperor's eye. His picture had so many darts in it now, that they formed a 3D beard for him. But darts just didn't seem to ease his own anger today. With a pull of The Force all the darts came out of the photo and onto his desk. Then he proceeded to use The Force to pick up the chair and throw it at the picture. The smash, clang, and rattle released some the anger. Another thought and the chair was back in its rightful place. It was Palpatine's fault The Empire was in this position. He was a brilliant planner and statesmen, but his inability to clear up the details was what brought him down. The million clones was not enough for a planet-nation at war, let alone a galactic empire. His decision that only humans could be recruited into the army doomed The Empire from the start. As The Empire's territory expanded, it had fewer soldiers to defend against more enemies over a greater area. It was only a matter of time until something gave. It had, and now he had to prevent a total collapse. It all could have been avoided when he was heir of The Empire. All those improvements he suggested labeled him as insolent; well now it was too late to enlist aliens, they were all hostile. His banishment to the Stormtrooper's ranks has caused great bitterness. Revenge and hatred had led him to The Force.

Time to start another day. Work was murder. He opened his closet and beheld a dozen uniforms, all the same shade of gray. All of the medals, dozens it appeared, were held onto the door by magnets. He would have liked to sit around in his undergarments, sip a Corethian ale, and watch the latest holo-porno. Such was not the life of an admiral though. One of these days, when the Rebellion was crushed, he that's how he would celebrate. He put his back to the closet and a gray uniform flew onto him and buttoned itself. The medals also flew to their proper place. Whoa, thay made the uniform quite heavy, what were these made of, real gold? Maybe they were there to reflect shots.

He heard a buzz on his communicator he had yet to put on. "Commander Domitain to admiral Lerutan. Commander Domitain to admiral Lerutan."

"Admiral Lerutan here. What is it commander?" Most likely the whiner needed to know if he was getting transferred to a safer command post for the upcoming battle. Either that or he'd locked himself in his quarters and forgot his own authorization code.

"Admiral, we have received a transmission from the Ru colony in Taro system. You'd better get down to the Ops room." The commander was getting a bit presumptuous. Maybe a Force beating would set him straight.

A minute later he was fully dressed, with his trusty lightsaber, and heading to the Ops room. The Aetius was quite a large ship. There was an in-ship subway system to send people to the various parts of the ship. The rest of this car was full of Stormtroopers. Ah, yes, the expendables. Well time to listen in on their little world. They wouldn't dare say anything of interest in front of him. Those that did would be thrown through the car for insubordination. That always left a really awkward pause in the conversation. The janitors always had nasty thoughts when he went by, another mess for them to clean up. Well, time to spy on their thoughts.

"All my relatives were on Coruscant, so they won't be able to send me anymore letters. I miss them. Join the army they said. See the galaxy they said. Meet interesting people and kill them. Learn to say 'where are the hookers?' in a dozen different languages."

"Oh god, it's the Admiral. Please don't reprimand me for running away in the last battle. Please don't, please don't. Ah nuts. Please don't let the yellow stain through the armor. Please..."

"Mmm... fried chicken, extra-crispy."

To kill time he took and his lightsaber and twirled it around his finger. After a few seconds he put it back in its place on the belt. Now let's hear the reaction, "I remember seeing Darth Seadist do that once. The lightsaber was on and took off his finger." Clearly they weren't impressed too much, he'd been too showy in the last while.

After a short ride he got off and strolled to the Ops room. Commander Domitain started speaking to him the moment he enter the door, "Sir, we have reports of a rebellion on Ru. All of our bases have been overrun and the rebels now control the planet."

"This will certainly hamper our ability to rearm this ship. The next nearest dock is 5 days away."

"Sir, that's the space-dock is on Meru. The rebellion is on Ru."

He was losing patience with his insolence. "What's the difference?"

"150,000 armed Rhodians, a large orbital dock, and 20 lightyears." 

That was it. He used The Force go reach out and grasp Domitain. Not around the neck, someplace far lower. "Well, here are my new orders: We will retake Ru and then proceed to Meru. Any questions?"

"None, crystal clear," Domitain chirped out, his voice growing ever higher.

He released Domitain, no sense killing useful, if insolent, officers. "Retaking Ru will only take a week at most. Send a transmission to the Prometheus and the Talos to join us." It was always good to have scapegoats in case things went wrong. "We will reconvene here in 5 hours to plan the assault." He needed the time to learn about the planet. He didn't even know where the planet was. Well, back to his quarters.

He awoke several hours later without remembering a thing about Ru, and a picture of Talian dancers on his screen. The wiped the drool from his face. It was good to have Jedi powers. He could walk into the Ops room, read all their minds, and know all he wanted to. He looked in mirror. This old, tough face was showing it's age. He was 63 and had a white beard to prove it to himself. His body felt much younger. The Force coursed through his arm, giving him a tingly sensation. Oh wait, that was a spider. Darn pests, you will die! Spiders, Rebels, Jedi will all die! All die! Bwahahaha! Now in the mood to plot the death of millions he strut out of his office. He quickly turned around and went back in, he wasn't wearing any pants. 

A few minutes later he was in the Ops room. There was a map of the capital city of Ru on the view screen. Commanders and admirals were moving pieces on the screen like a grand game of chess. "We're planning a two pronged attack on the capital city. The first attack should come from across this river... the Rubicon," one commander said as he walked in. He noticed Darth Geanosclyde was in a corner, observing. Good to see one them bothering to learn the finer points of military operations. 

"I see, and the second attack will come from the direction of this grassy knoll." he copied from the mind of another admiral, what a life-saver these powers were.

"Yes, but I doubt this will be enough to capture the capital city, Jer Fa Kera."

"Yes, we need to take out Airbase One. It will provide too much resistance if we don't hit it early."

"Yes and we should have one of the new Imperial Gunboats support the attack of Jer Fa Kera." The Imperial Gunboats was his version of the Millenium Falcon. Same size but a different shape. These wondrous ships were making mincemeat of the Rebel's smaller fighter-craft.

"No, we need two Gunboats to insure Jer Fa Kera will fall."

"Gunboats have yet to hit mass production, we need to conserve them, and they aren't suited to atmospheric combat. One lone gunboat will be used." 

"Yes, and the attack should take place at 03:15, under cover of darkness."

"We've tried night operations before, those Stormtroopers stick out like flares."

"We'll have the element of surprise, and the Stormtroopers will be able to see each other. Friendly fire should be low for a night operation."

"Seeing what their aiming at won't prevent Stormtroopers from shooting each other. I saw one of 'em shoot himself in the back."

"Of course we'll precede the attack with a bombardment of Agent Blue," he cut in. Agent Blue was a new biological weapon of his design. It was based on a ancient biological weapon he had found on an old Imperial colony. Those little cylinders of death. Those ingenious little creations, cigarettes. He found a stockpile containing millions of these poison packets, enough to kill off an entire planet, if used properly. It was an insidious weapon. Most likely dropped from aircraft to saturate the target. Then followed by an incineration attack would release of plume of deadly smoke, killing all in its path. Or if left, the poisons would seep into the ground, rendering the planet inhospitable. All he had done was put them into mass production, concentrated the formula, and added a blue coloring to the smoke. One of the simplest and deadliest weapons ever designed. Luckily, the Stormtrooper's helmet filtered out the toxins. "After the attack, the Aetius will bombard with conventional weapons. This should all be over in a week, no more." 

After they planned other key first assaults and started into the mop-up planning. It may have been presumptuous, but it needed to be done. The attack will take give him a much needed opportunity to test out many of his new creations, and tactics. This would be the first battle with a unit of Dark Jedi acting as covert operations team and standard fighting units. It will all be a grand testing grounds. He felt giddy, as if he was about to test fly a new fighter-craft. 

Two days later, it was the one-year memorial of the battle of Endor, and the death of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. To most it was a day of mourning, to him it was a day of rebirth. The rebirth of The Empire. Free of the fools in command, it could regain its past glory. He just received word from the Head Imperial Engineer, Arist, had informed him that a prototype of a computer interface had been installed in his office. "Computer, display the file on the battle of Endor."

A whiny, high-strung male voice responded, "Do you mind if you wait a minute? That file is being accessed by people all around the system." He half expected a monotonous female voice.

"Your's is not to say request denied. It is to do or fry," Lerutan shot back.

"Don't get all touchy on me, I'm going as fast as I can."

"Hey, I'm the only user on the system, it's a prototype! Display the file!"

"Give me a minute man. Don't get your uniform in twist. When I'm ready I'll display the file."

He sparked a few bolts between his fingers menacingly, "How long will I have to wait?"

"That file is number 1,024,885 of 684,832,753. It should only be a wait of... 5.6 X 10E23 hours." Lerutan placed his hand on the console and shot lightning into the mouthy computer. "Ahh! Ahh! It burns! It burns! My circuits are melting, melting! I have too much RAM to die! Noooooooooo..."

Lerutan then turned on his communicator, "Arist, this is Admiral Lerutan. Please report to airlock #32. I will join you there." The great thing about being an admiral is that nobody could tell when he was joking or being serious.

A few days later, they were in orbit of Ru. It was time once again to control their puny minds of the crew to ensure this was done quickly and efficiently. First as a warm-up, he peered into the minds of those in the ship. He saw a Stormtrooper in his quarters, cleaning his armor with a toothbrush, "Why must these suits stain so easily? It takes so long to clean them."

Then, through the eyes of a janitor listening to music as he swept a lonely hallway, "Play that funky music white boy. Let that funky music rock..."

Then to two Tie pilots walking the hall, "Urah, I'll bet you 20 credits that this won't be a pushover. That we will fighting a combat mission, not a rearm, resupply, and revisiting gambling halls mission." 

Now he spread his will out like a great cloud. His will infested the minds of every one on the Aetius like an annoying pop song. Everybody froze, their eyes glazed over, their went bodies rigid. They would obey his every command. "Everybody to combat positions. Communicator crews rely the following message to the Prometheus and Talos, 'Proceed with attack as planned.' Stormtroopers to assault pods. Tie pilots to your craft. Fire the Agent Blue at the designated targets. Open Imperial Gunboat bay doors... launch Imperial Gunboats. Hungry... mmm croissant. Oh yeah, launch fighters in bay 1." He sensed through his thousands of reporting eyes the crushing of Tie Fighters as they slammed against the fighter bay doors, "Ah crud, Open fighter bay doors! Open all doors. Wait, close airlock #32, close... too late. Launch all fighters. Launch pods containing Walkers, At-At's, and At-St's. Helm, take us into medium orbit on an attack run. Bwahahaha, cities will crumble into dust! Planets will fall! Stars will shudder! It all begins today!... not now, ah nuts, nature calls." He released them from his power. He was tired, so very tired. He needed more practice at controlling so many minds at once.

The next day all was going as planned. The bulk of the fighting was over, the Stormtroopers had carried the day. He couldn't remember that happening since, well he just couldn't remember the last time the Stormtroopers had performed on par to the days of old. They only lost 80,000 Stormtroopers to 140,000 Rhodians; the casualty ratio was in his favor. To add to victory, one of the leading Rhodians had been captured and was now being transferred to the Aetius. It had been awhile since he had been afforded the treat of an interrogation. Getting dressed and taking his lightsaber, he went to the detention cells. 

He passed a sign reading, "Visitors are asked to please not feed the prisoners."Colonel Zell stood guarding the door, he yielded and let him in. The Rhodian wasn't too badly beaten, the Stormtroopers just weren't good at interrogations. "I've heard that Rhodians have blue blood. The Imperial aristocracy is jealous. Despite their extensive inbreeding programs, they've yet to produce an offspring of truly blue blood. Well I've heard that you ranked fairly high in the rebellion. Care to share your thoughts on where you went wrong?"

"Keyra faz pah!" translated, 'Go blast yourself.'

"Well, we have ways of making you talk. Take for example, the pinching of a nerve." he reached out with The Force and squeezed.

"Faaaaaaaaaaaddddd!"

"Now, what if I twist the nerve as well?"

"Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggrrrrrrraaaaaaa!"

"I can do this all day; but I don't have all day. I'll just rip what I need from your mind." He placed his hand on the Rhodian's head and chanted, "My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts..."

The Rhodian cut in with a thought of his own, "My disrupter to your chest." Looking through the Rhodian's eyes he saw indeed that there was a disrupter pointed at him. With a motion of the force, the gun was free of the Rhodian's grasp and floating in the air. 

The life of the Rhodian flashed before is eyes. My god, it was boring. He almost nodded off as it got to the rebellion. There was images a secondary rebel command post in a cave in the badlands. They hadn't seen it from orbit. Judging from the arrangement of the stones, he say... a Jedi had lived there. Pictures of Imperial POW's flashed into his mind, and then a picture of a bookcase. The he surveyed the books in it: Karma Sutra, War and Pieces; Roughriders v.s. Roughriders; Romeo and Juliet and Richard; Everything I Know I Learned In The Clone Tanks; Everything You Wanted To Know About Wookies, But Were Too Smart To Ask To Their Faces; and... what appeared to be a book in a strange writing. Wait... he recognized the script, it was in Yoda's writing. Most intriguing, he would have to recover the book.

But, there was still a matter at hand. How had the Rhodian gotten a weapon in here? Clearly, Colonel Zell must of let him. Well, he'd give him what he wanted. Using the Force he fired the levitating disrupter into the Rhodian. The shot and the thump it produced would bring the Colonel running to inspect the result and kill the Rhodian before he talked. He heard motion outside, he took out his lightsaber and sliced through the metal wall. The thump outside told him he'd hitting something. Slicing through the door he saw that he had just decapitated a protocol droid. Colonel Zell was running away. A pull with The Force had the Colonel at his feet. A slice removed the colonel from his presence. Another assassination plot foiled. He flipped on his communicator, "This is admiral Lerutan to all full Dark Jedi. Report to Ops in the next 30 minutes. I've learned something that will ensure the prosperity of the Empire. We shall all live long." he then started a new transmission, "This is admiral Lerutan to the cell block janitor. You are needed at cell #3." This is why the janitors didn't like him. He looked in nearby mirror, did his ears seem pointier?

In the Ops room, 6 Dark Jedi were assembled when he arrived: Darth Liche, Darth Seadist, his sister Darth Meadist, Darth Geanosclyde, Darth Claw, and Darth Fred. Darth Liche and Darth Fred were dressed in the hoods of tradional Dark Jedi. Darth Seadist and Darth Meadist were in Officer's armor, without the cape Vader wore. Darth Genosclyde and Darth Claw were in normal officers garb. That's one thing about Dark Jedi he couldn't understand, they resisted all efforts at proper dress. They wore what they wanted to wear. "I've just learned of a secondary rebel outpost on Ru. It contains Imperial POW's and possibly a book written by Yoda. I've assembled you as my escort, as we're going to take the outpost. It'll still have maybe two dozen guards in it. We will have no other support from the fleet. It'll make a perfect training exercise. Any questions?"

Darth Liche spoke up, "(Wheeze) Will there be any (gasp) Jedis for us to hone our skills upon (cough wheeze)?" Unlike Vader, Liche's lung problems were due to smoking. The fool was smoking cigarettes. Cigarettes! The most devastating biological weapon ever designed was being deliberately ingested. And most insidiously of all, he said they were addictive. Why would such an obvious poison need to be addictive?

"I suspect that at least one was there to organize the rebellion. And please Liche, stop smoking, your wasting valuable weapons."

Several hours later the seven of them were in a Chariot speeding through the badlands. Ah, he loved the smell of blasted Rhodians in the morning. A cloud of Agent Blue obstructed the sun, bathing everything in a blue twilight. On the Chariot there was only room for 6 to stand, so he sat on the heads of the other six. A discipline exercise he called it. His black battle armor, complete with red should armor and his red centurion brush on his helmet, were already brown with the blowing dust. Who would have thought the badlands could be so dusty? 

The cave loomed among the rock formations, it gaping mouth stood ready to devour all. The erect stone slabs were it teeth. And what would the automated defenses count as, pimples? The seven Dark Jedi flicked on their lightsabers and charged headlong into the cave. The startled guards turned and fled. Those that didn't were skewered. Strange, he didn't feel any Jedi. These guards proved too easy a prey. He was pleased with the Dark Jedi though, very ruthless, very efficient, very sadistic; in his own (sob) image. He felt so proud. They trashed the communication equipment and scanners with such ease and grace. 

At last they came to the door to the POW's room. He could hear a female voice inside, "Don't look at me like that Marius. I whomped you once before, and I don't care if we're bound, I'll whomp you again." Barging in, they saw dozens of poorly clad Stormtroopers. Armor taken, they were down to their undergarments. He took a long look at some of the female soldiers. 

"Stand up all of you. I have one question: Why aren't you dead? Imperial doctrine states that you are to fight to the death and never surrender."

A discontented Stormtrooper erupted, "I just spent a week prisoner in this miserable place to be chewed out for not throwing away my life? I don't care if you are an admiral! I have an idea of where you should put that lightsaber of yours!"

"Your got guts, more than the rebels that were guarding you, hehe. I'm promoting you to Corporal."

"I'm a Sargent. If I were demoted, then I'd be a Corporal."

Lerutan raised his hand and flame erupted from it and engulfed the Stormtrooper, he fell to the floor a pile of bones. "You're a Corporal, end of argument, I win." He was a self-taught Dark Jedi, so he picked up a few tricks of his own. "Okay Dark Jedi, cut their bonds. Be sure that you don't go too fast and take off a hand..."

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Too late, some idiot must've strayed a slice.

"I didn't take off his hand, but I don't think Marius here will be able to have kids." Darth Fred, not the brightest Dark Jedi, but he got the job done.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

"Would somebody shut him up. Give some painkillers of something." The medic could regenerate the damage, but it sure would be an interesting tale for him to hear. 

Back on in the command room, he found the bookcase. Quickly plucking out "Romeo and Juliet and Richard" he leafed through it. Not quite what he'd was hoping for, lacked a little in the action department. He put the book back and took out the Yoda book. Hmm... it was in a language he'd never seen before. "Behind him, he heard the flicking as a lightsaber was turned on. Turning around a Jedi leapt from an unchecked doorway. A rescued Stormtrooper leapt in front of Lerutan, in an effort to use himself as human shield, yelling, "Nooooooo."

Fool! The Stormtrooper was blocking his way! Using The Force to sweep him out of the way, the Stormtrooper let out a surprised, "Whaaaat theee fuuuuudge?" Lerutan raised his lightsaber to parry the Jedi's stroke. With a kick, he slammed the Jedi back into the wall. Using The Force to grasp the Jedi's neck he raised him into the air. He threw his lightsaber through the Jedi. He held out his hand, expecting the lightsaber to return to it. The lightsaber missed and flew into the wall behind him, inches from Darth Fred's head. Strange, he hadn't sensed the Jedi, they must have learned a few new tricks.

Back on the Aetius, he was received with the welcome of a conquering hero. Rows and rows of Stormtroopers sang the Imperial national anthem. Waiting until they finished, he flicked on some music with The Force and took control of a five minds: A Stormtrooper, a janitor, an officer, Darth Fred, and a Tie Pilot. Sending them into the center of the hall they began singing "YMCA." The others didn't all laugh, they could be next. Still, he thought it was funny. When he was finished with them, he went to his quarters. 

The computer had finished translating the language. He read the first paragraph, "Curious you are. Impart to you this book shall knowledge. On read enlightened you become will." Confound it, it still made no sense. Codes within codes! He will have only a few days to crack it. They were already at Meru.

__

Elpollodiablos@hotmail.com


	4. The Endor Memorial

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

  
  


Part Four

  
  


Images flashed in Luke's mind as he slept: The ice cave of Hoth. The lightning flowing effortlessly from the Emperor into him. His stump of an arm. Him clinging to the bottom of the Bespin antennae. Darth Vader holding out his hand, in a motion for him to join him. His foster parents home smoldering from an Imperial attack. His friends trapped in Carbonite, a still life pose of horror in their faces. A Death Star firing on Coruscant. The picture of thin, wiry, clumsy Gungan laughing at him, followed by more laughter of every possible character, until it became a chorus in his head. The voice of his father whispered in his mind, "(cough) It only a matter of (wheeze) time before you cross over. Just release yourself (gasp) from ... (cough, cough, hack, wheeze) Give me a moment to get a second wind."

Before it could continue, he woke up suddenly. With a jerk reflex he thrust his fist into the adjacent pillow. The whirr of a lightsaber and the smell of searing feathers greeted his senses. He had just impaled his pillow with his lightsaber. It was the 7th one to meet that fate in the last month. He really should stop sleeping with his lightsaber. He was drenched with sweat, the room felt quite hot. He must have given off a lot of energy as he slept. When a Jedi has a nightmare, the room has (what he thought to be) a whirlwind in it. He stepped off his bed to further survey the damage. He slipped on a pool of his own sweat and found himself staring at the ceiling. The lightbulb read "Made by Acme Corp." Funny, he'd never heard of them before. Slowly he got to his feet, using The Force to rearrange the room back to its pristine state. 

  
  


That done, he started his daily task of testing his artificial hand. Good old father, they'd make a good pair on the Jerry Springer Show. First he tried to make his hand as flat as possible. Hmm... it was resisting him today. Then he tried to form a fist, all but his middle finger slowly responded. Hmm... he exerted the will of The Force, the middle finger moved to it place, then jammed, and the entire hand began smoking and sparking. He detached it and tossed it out the window behind him. He was in the former Emperor's palace of Coruscant. There were a dozen lanes of cars that ran beside the palace. One of them now had a malfunction hand in it. A scream and the sound of a hover car slamming into a building confirmed the worst; maybe he shouldn't have emptied his bedpan out the window last night. Life was so much more complicated in the city. 

  
  


He fit a spare hand on, placing new batteries in it. He put on the same robe he'd wore for the last 5 years. It never seemed to get very dirty. He quickly washed himself, and halfway through water leaked in the new hand causing it to spark and give him a nasty electric shock. Detaching it and draining it, he remember how much he disliked having to go through this every day. After he was done, he looked at the clock: 27:48. Urrhhh, he hated Coruscant time. 

  
  


Today was the day he wished wouldn't come: The Endor Memorial. It was the one-year anniversary of the Battle of Endor today. One year since his father had been killed. To the rest of the Rebel Alliance is was a day of celebration. He had to join the celebration in the main foyer in... -18 minutes. Ah crud. 

  
  


He quickly jogged through the corridors in the palace. What a life he has: Raised by adopted parents that were killed when he was a teenager. Never knowing his mother. His real father tried to kill him, chopping off his hand in one battle. He had sexual thoughts about his sister. And most of the Rebelion's youth wanted to be just like him. Most likely he needed a psychiatrist, not a lightsaber. If the rebelion wanted a brave, non-thinking, slice-'n-dice knight in pale white cloth armor; instead of a thinker, who was he to question the will of the billions of people? Fate truly had a dark sense of humor.

  
  


The main foyer was layered over 3 stories, including a ground floor. Ornate balconies and railing graced the open corridor and grand wide stairs. Such a place had been constructed with great cost, and now the rag-tag mass that filled it hardly complimented it. Huge orchestras and bands were playing all forms of music, there was a large selection of food and refreshments. The crowd danced on the floor. Admirals, diplomats, smugglers, royalty, soldiers, and civilians were all present. He strolled over to the refreshment stand and took a rather large glass of Ruby Bliel. This was a night/day/twilight/whatever he didn't want to remember. Most likely every person in the room wanted to see get his autograph, or see his lightsaber, or do acrobatics in the air. If he was lucky he wouldn't be asked to do "hypnosis" (a.k.a. a mind trick) on some unsuspecting backwater rube.

  
  


Well, well, Admiral Jerad was walking towards him. The man who had sent his entire academy, except for James and Leon, off to die. The cream of the galaxy was being sent to die. Sacrifice for one's cause could go too far. It wasn't Admiral Jerad that was going to die on some gigantic ship, surrounded by enemies. "Ah, Luke Skywalker, just the man I wanted to talk too. I have a question I figured you could answer."

  
  


"Now what would that be admiral?"

  
  


"What do Jedi do when they retire?"

  
  


Retire? The only Jedi he ever heard of retiring was Yoda. All the others died from battle. Time to bluff his way through the question, "We live on some deserted planet as a hermit. We chop wood with our lightsabers, and write books that of our expierences so that others will fight to read it, thus keeping the cycle of new Jedis and Dark Jedis complete. Then we die alone and forgotten, unless they need our knowledge."

  
  


"Okay... that explains your complete lack of fear of death, you have nothing to live for. One more question, what are the those lightsabers made of?"

  
  


The things were made of wood, plastic, acrylic paint, and some wires, a filament, and a really big battery. That just didn't sound mystical though, "Acromalite." With all these white lies he was telling he hoped he wasn't turning to the Dark Side. 

  
  


"Well I look forward to having you lead Rogue Squadron in defense of Coruscant. I'm sure you'll make the Alliance proud."

  
  


Of course, nobody else could do what he did. He decided to take leave of the admiral, have another large Ruby Bliel and mingle with the crowd The trumpeter's were those aliens that looked like they ate dish detergent for a snack. Good trumpet players, but they looked like they were about to inhale the instrument. Was the floor bumpy? He was beginning to stumble. The music changed to something electronic. The dance became spasmatic individual motions instead of graceful group movement. He came across C3P0 doing a dance he called "The Robot", how appropriate. The limited, jerky movements reminded him just how useless that robot was. 'Protocol droid', such a waste of technology. Wait, they could translate, but that was it. Almost as if they were created to hated by those who witnessed them. The droid in distress? R2D2 was useful, it could fix things. The blasted things kept tipping over though. Was nothing working right? Like this floor, it just kept getting bumpier.

  
  


As if on cue he saw R2D2 running through the crowd trying to escape what appeared to be some engineers. They look like they had a data crystal they wanted to give it, but it didn't want it. The little droid was going has fast he could, running over everybody's feet. Then it tripped over one the bumps in the floor, or maybe it was a foot. The soldiers caught up with him and righted the wailing droid, while inserting the crystal. They the droid let out a beep that sounded like "Yahhhoooooo," and began spinning on it wheels. It kept spinning and spinning until it tipped over on it side. It kept of spinning and eventual spun on its head, its wheels in the air. The droid was a good break dancer.

  
  


He walked over to one of those orange aliens with the 3 eyes on the end of stalks. The lower half of the face looked like a dog. He couldn't remember their names, there were so many aliens. He had a nice conversation with him/her/it on the old Republic. They differed on whether Naboo was a planet or a doughnut. Stupid fool didn't know a doughnut when he saw one. Then he found himself back at the refreshment stand. He juggled Tim Bits using The Force for a few minutes. Then he was talking to a guard. They had an interesting discussion on whether the ancient human home world was the mythical planet of Venus, or the mythical planet of Mars. She agreed with him that the floor was getting bumpier. Then back to the refreshment stand. Hans Solo was there. Luke asked him how the Hutts were, if he was still doing any jobs for them. Hans was rather ticked off, Luke couldn't figure out why. Luke then decided to crack a joke to make up for it. "So, have gotten a flea collar for Chewbacca yet?" Amazingly, it didn't go over too well. He should loosen up, he was always so calculating and stressed. Or was that the Admiral? He couldn't remember.

  
  


He took a look over the railing to the dance floor. Was it his imagination, or was Princess Leia dancing with Chewbacca? "The Blue Danube" was playing and all the guests were waltzing. He also saw a Ewok hanging from a chandelier. A Stormtrooper and a bantha herder were laughing at him from upside down on the ceiling. He waved at them. Then he heard a voice calling him from the floor. Chewbacca released the princess with a gentle twirl. They were having pinatas of Darth Vader strung up. They were asking him to wack them with his lightsaber. He was not amused. Well it took him several swipes to hit the thing, they kept moving it out of range. He even made quite a gash in the floor. Eventually he hit it, and the pinata burst into flames and rained molten candy down on top of him. Quickly, he dodged out of the way, and into one of the more attractive dignitaries. For the next one he offered to hold the lightsaber by the other end, so the plastic end would hit the pinata. His offer was refused.

  
  


Then it was back to the refreshment stand. The floor was so bumpy, he was surprised the others could walk so easy. The Stormtrooper on the ceiling was now having a wrestling match with a tie-dyed Wookie. He shouted to the Wookie if he needed any help. The response of the nearby guests was to ask if he, Luke, needed any help. Why would he need help? It was the Wookie that was getting the German Supplex. After a 3-count the Wookie had lost. It was a good match. Too bad no one else had seen it. He spotted James and Leon on the main floor. Hey, some Jedi that would live for another few months, unless their hand slipped when shaving. He tried to jump over the railing to greet them, but his foot caught on it as he went over. The last thing he remembered seeing was a flowing, ocean-like floor rushing to embrace him. 

  
  


Elpollodiablos@hotmail.com 

  
  



	5. Hans Solo V.S. Boba Fett

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

  
  


Part Five

  
  


The crowd stretched on for tens of meters. The ocean of flowing heads, all moving and bobbing in some complicated rhythm. It helped being the tallest one here in a way, he could observe anyone from anywhere in the main foyer. The bad thing was that people just kept asking him how the humidity was up there. A band was playing some rather inelegant music. The golden humanoid shape of C3P0 was in front of him. The droid was enjoying himself, it was one of the few occasions a Protocol droid could practice what it was programmed to do with out getting a rude remark or blow to its face. That reminded him, C3P0's face looked rather new, did he have another one-sided run-in with an officer? C3P0 was the same shade of gold as those curved instruments the band was playing. If he twisted C3P0 into a pretzel and blew into one of the newly created holes, while pressing its buttons, he might get a similar sound. C3P0 said to him, "Yes, master Chewbacca, I have the King Arthur's Knights on file. A rather adventurous and romantic tale. A human classic."

  
  


Master? He'd never been called that by anyone but C3P0, that's why he liked to talk to C3P0. It'd never called him by that annoying nickname 'Chewy.' What was he, a granola bar? "Quite a chauvinist piece of literature. The knights were bullies, and the women submissive. The whole 'chivalry' thing is quite the opposite of the understood reality of the time. And the cruel use of the those massive four-legged creatures, Hurzes, were they called?" he said, in his native language. Humans had described it as sounding like a tigress giving birth, a gargling panther, or a neutered elephant. What a bunch of ignorant creatures. He'd have to learn this 'English' someday.

  
  


"Horses they were called, Horses. Well, I suppose everybody needs a dream to look up. It's just the way they lived then. Oh, wait shall we switch back to the stereotypical conversation?" Some people were heading their way. Not wanting to shatter the human's little preconceptions about him quite yet, C3P0 pretended it was talking to a uncivilized barbarian. "I'd say we're about 10 stories above the ground. No, I don't know how to fly. Why would I need to? Hey! Get your hands off of me! Help!" He set down the droid when the guards arrived, he had his fun. 

  
  


He strolled away, quite happy. He itched on the arm. Blasted fur mites, the things were quite annoying. He must spend a hour or two each day scratching or trying to kill the things. What he need was some kind of device that emits a odor to drive off the things. Maybe a band around the wrist or something. He noticed that another intoxicated human was marking his territory on a fern in the corner of the room. That must have been the 5th human to do so this hour. Funny how none of them cared that the fern had already been marked. None of the supposed masters of the territory stopped to defend it. He half excepted a line to form in front of the fern. The poor thing couldn't take much more, it was already turning yellow and wilting from the acidity.

  
  


The music changed to a track he recognized, the "Blue Danube." Recently he'd learned how to do human dances. A rather acrobatic feat, but he'd learned it. All he now needed was a partner. He looked around, and spotted someone. Princess Leia, he'd met her before. He walked up and said, "Would you care to dance?" In his own language. It sounded to her like "Grawllluu, raaauuckk, gruuufff?" She must have interpreted it as, "Get out of my way," for she moved away from him, with a rather disgusted look on her face. He didn't smell that bad, did he? When you're covered in fur, water suddenly become a difficult enemy to get off of you. So maybe that's why the fern was wilting. Since language didn't work he held out his paw to indicate his intentions. 

  
  


First she looked rather surprised, then she burst out laughing. After a minute, she finally calmed down and consented. Then she began laughing again she realized he was competent. What was she on, crack? Well, those around them began to laugh as well. Taking his mind off them and onto Leia. What was with the hair? It looked like a pastry. After the waltz had finished, he released her and looked at the next stage of the celebration.

  
  


The were stringing up pinatas of Darth Vader. A rather unusual custom. They called down Skywalker to destroy the pinatas. The legendary hero was drunk. He took some rather pathetic swipes at it. He nearly took off an officers arm. Before somebody sane suggested that Luke take a break, he made contact with the pinata. The thing burst into flames. Wow, what good pyrotechnics, this was a most entertaining custom. Then fiery bits of the pinata rained down on Luke. That looked like fun. His tunic had caught fire though. He didn't seem to notice. He was offering to whack the next pinata with the other end of the light saber. Quickly his offer was turned down as a fire extinguisher put out the blaze. He stumbled back to the food stand he'd spent of the evening around. At least he thought it was evening. The sun had set, but three moons were up, bathing the world in reflected light. There was too much light. The night here only lasted 8 hours.

  
  


Then Solo came into the dance floor. He was clothed only in a pair of pants and a shirt. For all these terribly overdressed humans, he was looking more natural. Considering what they acted like when 'civilized' he'd hate to see them in the wild. However Solo was not getting in touch with his inner being, he had lost several rounds of strip poker to officers in some back room. His gambling debts were getting quite high. The bounty on the bounty hunter's head was equal to the bounty on head of the bounty hunter Boba Fett. So, if Hans Solo killed himself, he, Chewbacca, would be paid 85,000 credits. Hmm... accidents could happen, but he didn't want to think about it now; he had a headache. 

  
  


Then he heard a yell from the balcony and saw Luke Skywalker smack into the floor face first. He didn't move, but the expression on the others' faces was that he was only unconscious. He turned and saw R2D2 still on his head, spinning and beeping. It'd been doing that for the past two hours. That thing's battery was going to run low. Where were the engineers that programmed R2D2 to do that?

  
  


Just then the roar of engines were heard and the outline of a spaceship was seen outside one of the large windows. From the look of the ship, it was... the Slave One! That was Boba Fett's ship. The Wookie dived into the air away from the window as the ship opened fire. The windows shattered, plaster disintegrated, and pinatas were vaporized. He looked behind him to see a good portion of the crowd that was in the line of fire were either dead or wounded. 

  
  


Then the ship set down just outside the palace. Why did it do that, he wondered. Was the ship out of ammunition? Were the remaining guests out of the line of fire? Did Boba Fett have to use the fern really badly? And why hadn't he fired any missiles? Before he could ponder this anymore, the spherical shapes of Thermal Detonators were spread like confetti into the main foyer. If it weren't for the fact the dozens lay dead, he would have appreciated the light show. The armored shape of Boba Fett then marched onto the dance floor, spraying fire from his Imperial Heavy Repeater: A machine blaster he would find bulky.

  
  


Luke was unconscious, the guards being mowed down, but there were still the two Jedi he had seen earlier. James and Leon were side by side. They took out their lightsaber in unison and ignited them at the same time. Alas, they were too close to each other, and when the lightsaber ignited, they impaled each other. Ah yes, Jedi, smarter than the average Protozoa. 

  
  


Then back to Boba Fett, who was methodically laying waste to Rebel Command. Out of nowhere Hans Solo did a diving roll and stood up face to face with Boba. For a split second both had guns within centimeters of each others head. Let's see, Boba Fett had extensive body armor, a jet pack, a massive gun, and extensive training. Hans Solo had a thin shirt, leg power, a blaster pistol (which had been smuggled in), and the power of improvising. Who had the advantage? He might as well charge in, and save him before he got himself killed. Hans' brilliant plan: Knee Boba Fett in the crotch. He was wearing body armor, and the pain in Hans' face was a good reminder. Before Hans could be shot, the charging Wookie body slammed Boba. Being on your back and see and mad Wookie on top of you would count as a unnerving situation. Boba's response was to fire his jet pack. Flying backward and into and a recovering guard, Boba then lifted off into the air, firing. Great, now his fur was singed. He probably have to shave off most of the fur on his legs and let it grow back.

  
  


Boba Fett was darting about like a bee, firing, and killing more guards and guests. But now that everyone had recovered from the surprise, the guards were returning fire. It was Hans though, that fired the shots, not at the body armor, which had been reflecting shots, but at the jet pack. The first dozen shots all missed, Boba was going too fast. Eventually Boba flew into a chandelier, and Hans got a good shot off, hitting the jet pack. It burst into flames, and Boba fell onto one of the pinatas, and then onto the floor. The guy had burns across his entire back and legs, and had dropped the gun onto the guard he had rammed into earlier.

  
  


Not finished yet, he launched a grappling hook from his arm and shot it out the window he had blasted and snagged the interior of his ship. Quickly he pulled himself back into the Slave One. The ship then took off. Chewbacca surveyed the damage. Half the guests were dead or injured, priceless works of art destroyed, refreshment stand was okay, and the bands were untouched. The band now played the "Funeral March." Now the survivors began to wail. "My legs! I can't feel my legs!" Admiral Jerad yelled from a pile of wounded.

  
  


"Oww! That's because they're my legs!" someone underneath yelled.

  
  


"How did he just walk in here? I ordered patrol flights 24 hours a day!" Admiral Jerad was yelling.

  
  


"There are 37 hours a day on Coruscant. I thought you were giving us pilots an easy time." a bewildered guest said.

  
  


"Now everybody stay calm."

  
  


"Calm? Half of Rebel Command is dead. How are we supposed to win... hey wait a minute! That means I'm going to be promoted to fill the gap! Wahooo!"

  
  


"Where's the medic?"

  
  


"The medic is wounded."

  
  


"We need a medic for the medic!"

  
  


"This not good. This will not make a good mark on my record." one of the guards groaned.

  
  


"I can't feel my head!"

  
  


Chewbacca looked around further. R2D2 was still spinning, C3P0 was still trying to run away from the window. James and Leon had made their own pyres, the lightsaber had ignited their clothing. Luke Skywalker was sitting up, telling everyone to be quiet, he had a bad hangover. His own fur on the legs was singed, his back itched from the mites. Hans Solo was using the fern in the corner of the room. And... was that fried chicken he smelled? Yep, a Rhodian lay smoldering on the floor. The evening certainly wasn't as boring as he'd thought it'd be.

  
  



	6. Enroute to Meru

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

  
  


Part Six

  
  


Harold stood before her, oblivious of her presence. He was too busy shaving himself. The humming of lightsaber, and absolute concentration needed to wield it without chopping off his own head was keeping him from noticing her. That was good, for it would make this test better. In her hand was a inflated paper bag, and she was slowly approaching him from the side. It was a pity that she had not arrived earlier, she would have liked to see how Jedi brushed their teeth. If her theory was right, and these were in fact the chosen of the galaxy, the new Jedi, then they should surpass the ones of the Old Republic. They should have the lightning reflexes, the steady hands, the discipline of a Stormtrooper. They should respond to the sudden noise with a slice of the lightsaber, stopping just short of her head. Either that, or they were the idiots they were rumoured to be. In that case he would take off his own head due to the surprise and out the airlock he'd go. Lost somewhere in the border between the Rebellion (soon to be New Republic, she hoped) and The Empire.

  
  


"There, done. Smooth as a droid's bottom," Harold said, flicking off his lightsaber. She popped the paper bag, as he said those words. He spun around, thinking his lightsaber was still ignited, and took a swing. Too much power was in swing and after a dizzying spin, he leaned on the toilet for support. Then he turned and looked at her, "Don't do that. A had a roommate in the academy that liked to that. I'm missing a few of my teeth, and I only have three of my original fingers left."

  
  


"What happened to him?"

  
  


"A fool and his head are soon parted. During a practice duel, his lightsaber went too far back preparing for an overhead chop. Don't mess with a Jedi, we have a very dangerous piece of equipment. You've got to be disciplined and coordinated to use of these," Harold said while gesturing with his lightsaber hand. He accidentally ignited it and it pierced the mirror to his side. A scream could be heard from the adjacent room. "Sorry," he yelled to the other room. Then to her, "Due the frequent... accidents... at the academy master Luke taught us how to use manipulate The Force to purge bodily wounds and restore vitality. It's called... Jedi Heal."

  
  


"How original."

  
  


"Master Luke said he spent a whole week meditating on the name. Or at least he told us he meditating. The technique has come in handy. Since it taught, only two Jedi die a week."

  
  


"A week?!"

  
  


"It's very difficult training. When you working with a lightsaber, what's the margin for error?"

  
  


"Nine fingers' width?"

  
  


"Yeah, that seems about right. Is a neck as wide as nine fingers? The academy is not just duelling, it about using The Force and study. One of these days I'll figure out how to use a Mind Trick on someone without exploding their head. I can do Push and Pull fairly well. Here's another trick we learned, so we can see in the dark." Harold snapped his fingers, and one caught fire providing additional light for the room.

  
  


"Wow, that's neat."

  
  


"Unfortunately, that's one of my real fingers. Oh god, it burns!" Harold quickly put out the blaze.

  
  


"So what do they teach you about The Dark Side?"

  
  


"The what?"

  
  


"The people with lightsabers trying to kill you."

  
  


"You mean Bubba and Master Luke?"

  
  


"No, The Empire's Dark Jedi. You know, Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine and all that," she was starting to get worried.

  
  


"You mean The Empire has Jedi of its own? Oh crud, oh crud, oh crud... just kidding! We know all about them. I had you going didn't I? Now answer one of my questions: What are you doing in my quarter's bathroom when I'm in it? Trying to get me killed?"

  
  


"Uh..."

A few hours later she was back piloting the ship through an asteroid belt. Auto pilot couldn't handle it, so she had to do it personally. When she first arrived at the helm, her ship had told her "You've got junk mail." For the last time, she didn't want that 'free' trip to Naboo. Not if she had to pay a 100 credit FIOF (for idiots only fee). She could go to Naboo whenever she wanted with her ship. This ship was the predecessor of the Millennium Falcon, the Annual Hummingbird. It was called that because of its very loud engines, and that every year someone else was stupid enough to buy this hunk of junk. Well, that was all this smuggler could afford. If she completed this mission, she'd have enough money to buy the Millennium Falcon. Just a routine smuggling mission they told her. Instead of smuggling in weapons, spare parts, food, or porno to some border world, she had to smuggle people into a world deep in The Empire's territory. They were just diplomats they told her. Yeah right, diplomats that dressed like refugees. Diplomats that confused the words 'etiquette' and 'etch-e-sketch.' Diplomats with lightsabers, and playing Force Tug-of-War on the landing pad. What type of idiot did Rebel Command think she was? 

  
  


The reduced Rebel Command that is. She heard that Boba Fett had flown the Slave One right into Coruscant, blew up several hangars of X-Wings and B-Wings with missiles, and flew unchallenged to the Emperor's palace. There he had killed 80 or so guests, and wounded another 120. Where were the patrols? They had launched some X-Wings on the other side of the continent after the initial attack, but somehow the Slave One, which was so slow moss could catch it, had evaded them. Maybe she had it backwards, maybe she wasn't supposed to be the idiot.

  
  


Now she was navigating asteroids, nebulas, quasars, black holes, white holes, and butt holes just to reach the planet. Well, just in case she'd better have her Imperial identification codes. 300 Credits usually does it, but in case of a competent guard, she story was that she was bringing new recruits with special orders to take them to Meru. She had a back up plan as well. She had rigged the craft with sensors designed to make the craft seem like meteor on Imperial sensors. They'd only work for a short time before burning out. The craft didn't look anything like a meteor, so if anyone saw them her cover would be blown.

  
  


There, she had just navigated the asteroid field, only another 9 hours until they reach the Gyrantoaodkfltorekjjforegjroejofeofwhackwhackakwmbxmeaewodd'tyrj nebula. Those stupid little Amanamans. She'd only hit 4 four asteroids. Who said you needed a licence to fly these things? Now she needed to get to the engine room. Most likely she'd burned out the lateral and horizontal thrusters. This called for the space mechanic's secret weapon: Duct tape. She grabbed a few rolls and sprinted to the engine room, which was conveniently located in the opposite end of the craft. 

  
  


On the way a Jedi with a huge coffee stain on his shirt tried to get her attention, "Maya, may I have a word with you?" She ignored him and quickly shut the engine room door behind her. The engines had seen better days. She wasn't quite sure when, probably back when Yoda was teenager, jumping from lillypad to lillypad, singing songs with a guitar. Oh wait, that was Kermit the frog. Well the two looked similar. Somehow she could imagine Yoda with some else's hand up his back, controlling his every move like a puppet. Yeah, a puppet with German grammar, what a farcical idea. 

  
  


She was forgetting about the engines. Let's see, the engine oil had mushrooms growing in it. The temperature gauge was beyond the normal range. The pointer had broken off and the stump was pointing at an area called '(expletive)ing hot.' The room was turning into a sauna. The plasma injector coil was pumping plasma exhaust into the ventilation system. That wasn't good. She'd have to shut down the main engine and run on the warp, er... star drive engine for now. These engines really were loud. The sound of clunking parts formed a steady drum beat. The high-pitched whine of a leaky pipe, the whirring a loose screw bumping around in a compartment, and clang some worn-out parts formed a wondrous melody of something discord. She pulled out the duct tape and got to work.

  
  


Several hours later she was in the galley. The Jedi were all assembled and appeared to be taking sides for a food fight. These really were immature people. Well, the food was Imagulan gruel paste, not the most tasty, nutritious, or appealing food. And it did scoop into a ball very well. She just lifted up a tray as a shield as the other flung gruel at each other. They used The Force to fling pointed cutlery at each other too. She could order them to stop, and threaten to throw them in the brig, but what would Jedi have to fear from a lowly smuggler? She could spy from the corner of her eye, another Jedi, trying to eat his meal, using a Force Shield to create a dome of thrown gruel around him.

  
  


Just then, Bubba, a rather disturbed Jedi, stumbled into the galley. "My tricorder is giving anomalous readings. Spock, what is going on here?" He was talking into an electric razor. Hm... so all Jedi didn't shave with lightsabers.

  
  


"What did you guys do to him? He's obviously delirious."

  
  


"Beam me up Scotty, there's no life on this planet. Scotty, Scotty, come in Scotty. Spock do you have any speculation?"

  
  


"He's just been meditating. His concentration was broken and he's snapped into a delusional state for a few hours. It's a regular practical joke. This will be quite funny. Don't worry he won't harm anyone."

  
  


"Star date 104384.35975.359389598398 and two thirds: I'm so very hungry, it's been a month since an attractive girl has crossed my path. I can see only one way out of this." Then Bubba ignited his lightsaber, killed his electric razor, calling it a 'p'tah' and then stumbled back to quarters.

  
  


"You think that was bad, you should have hear of time my meditation was interrupted. Have you ever heard of a character called 'Colonel Klink?'"

  
  


The next day, a Jedi was making a rather usual request, "You want to have a lightsaber duel with I8I1, a reprogrammed protocol droid?"

  
  


"It the safest form of dueling. We can heal moderate internal wounds, but no a serious blow. Nor can we reattach limbs severed with a lightsaber, due to the instant cauterization of the wound. A droid can be easily repaired."

  
  


"Do I have a say in any of this?" A Chris Tucker like voice came from the droid. No one was listening.

  
  


"I'll allow it on the condition that I get to watch, and you help piece him back together."

  
  


"I am programmed to feel pain." The pleading wasn't working. A lightsaber was thrust into its hands. 

  
  


"Deal. Now hold it right... here. Try not to make this too easy." With a use of The Force, the lightsabers ignited. To her amazement, the slow droid was parrying the strokes with jerky movements. She could almost she fear in the droids eyes. Then the droid let out an electronic scream and did a chop with the lightsaber.

  
  


"Oh my god, you killed Lenny!"

  
  


"What are you talking about? You're fine," she said to the amazed Jedi.

  
  


"Lenny's the name of my lightsaber. Your droid just ruined it."

  
  


"You mean I won? Horray!" I8I1 said cheering. The Jedi's response was to use The Force to wretch the lightsaber from its hands, and take its head off with a stroke. The droid's head settled on the floor, while the body remained standing. "You're a rather sore loser. That really hurts."

  
  


After 4 long days they were nearing Meru. She had called Bubba and Harold to the bridge to give her a hand with the weapons and engines in case they weren't recieved well. They didn't have enough firepower to take on 300-meter asteroid, let alone a Tie Fighter, so it really wouldn't matter, but better safe than sorry. "Now whatever you do, don't press the red button. That's what triggers the sensors to portray us a meteor." She could see Bubba with a sparkle in his eye, slowly reaching more the red button. Harold quickly stopped him. "We got a communication, putting it through on audio, the holographic display isn't working, due to the fact some one sliced it in two."

  
  


"This Captain Tyra of the Imperial Star Destroyer Gladius, state your business or be destroyed." This was one of the dozens of Imperial war ships gathering at Meru. They're gathering for an attack. Patrols of Tie Fighters were all around her. She hadn't seen this many Imperials since Hoth.

  
  


"I'm here to deliver some special recruits directly to the orbital dock on Meru. Orders straight from Commander Domitain."

  
  


"Send me over the identification code sequence." Luckily she had an Imperial giving her this inside information for a monthly shipment of Jerafana. Did Imperial Command have any idea how corrupt their soldiers were? To be fair, Imperial Command itself was fairly corrupt.

  
  


"Your codes are verified. Can you explain the condition of your ship? Are you in need of repairs?"

  
  


"No, just cut-backs to the transportation budget. And... don't touch the red button! Oh dang it!" The Captain's face no doubt looked down at some sensor readings that would say that her ship was now a meteor. Time to think fast. "These are special ops recruits. They can't wait to test the new gear. Patience will have to be drilled into them. As you can see, The Empire has been developing a few new tricks."

  
  


"Very well, proceed."

  
  


Right after the transmission had ended, she lunged at Bubba and started strangling him. Harold just laughed at seeing a scrawny little smuggler girl strangle a massive, muscled Jedi who too surprised to fight back. After a seconds and a couple of choking sounds, a Force Push sent her back against the wall. Then a string of verbal insults exploded from her mouth. She couldn't wait to get these walking disasters off her ship. 

  
  


When they finally reached the orbital docks, she told them to conceal their lightsabers and get out. There response was to ask her how to stow aboard the admiral's flagship. Apparently Luke didn't brief them too well. "Just hide in a container, or say you're a new janitor. I don't know, just get out." Then the half dozen Jedi left the ship. Stow aboard the admiral's flagship! She hoped they weren't the only ones trying this. Wait, this was all making sense now. These were likely one of several groups of Jedi trying to smuggle aboard the Aetius. During the next battle, which these ships were obviously amassing for, they attempt to kill Admiral Lerutan. If the Dark Jedi were like these Jedi, then the Aetius should be exploding anytime from an 'accident'. Good luck to you Jedi. They were going to need it; one of them was attempting to sneak aboard by hiding in a garbage bin outside a beverage stand called "Starbucks". 

  
  


She believed that she had just figured out these Jedi. All masters were dead. Except for Luke, who was not versed in the literature. These Jedi were learning fighting from the best teacher in the galaxy, but none of the wisdom that made a true warrior. To make matters worse, he obviously did not know the procedures for selecting new Jedi. He was taking new recruits wherever he could, many of them nearly insane from lack of understanding of the incredible power within them. So there's going to a pile of massive muscles, brainless, lightsaber wielding Jedi keeping order in the galaxy. In contrast, it would make sense that Dark Jedi would be better versed in the studies and better disciplined, but would lack the fighting skills. Either way, she didn't want to be near any of them again. She wouldn't have enough duct tape to fix all the damage.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. The First Shots

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

  
  


Part Seven

  
  


Guo Xi stared at the map. Due to the fact the galaxy was on a two dimensional plane, it could be represented easily on a two dimensional map. A vast series of blue lights represented the Rebels, red lights were the Imperials, green lights were the independent worlds, and yellow lights were contested zones. All kind of beautiful in the way the lights came together to form a bright neon image. If you blurred your eyes in just the right way, and let the colors blend, it appeared white, untouched, in pristine condition. The Empire and the Rebellion became little problems yet to occur. It'd all be in the New Republic, he hoped. Back to the present now; it was his job to take one of those innumerable lights and turn it off. Who'd notice? It'd take hundreds of years to be noticed from another planet's surface. He took another bite of his bagel. One could not do this on an empty stomach. His reached and pressed the power button for the display. In a split second the galaxy died, all the trillions of people on innumerable worlds were just killed with a flick of the switch. Then he pushed back on. The whole galaxy came to life. Then off again, then on again; it was the intoxicating feeling of being god.

  
  


"Yes, yes, Guo, we all know the display works. Could you step away from it? You're dropping sesame seeds into the keypad. Good, now I'll continue with my briefing," Grigori said. He was one of the most patronizing Rebels he'd ever met. He was most likely born a Rebel, with a blaster in one hand, and deck of cards in the other. "Now we expect the Imperials to arrive some time in the next few days, so were doing constant patrols. The Imperials caught us with our pants down 8 days ago, and so we don't want it to happen again, they'll have a much bigger paddle this time. Most likely the Imperials will be entering between the 6th planet of the system, Taretum, and the 5th planet, Tingis. They'll do this so that they can use the asteroid field as general cover for their strike-craft. Also their capital ships can advance on Coruscant from behind the cover of the most planets and moons, denying most of our orbital defenses a clear shot. Naturally, we've set up a few surprises of our own. The asteroid field has been extensively mined, so don't wander into it. That means you, Lee. I've seen some of the more... shall we say... distracting holo-videos in your X-Wing." Normally an officer would confiscate them, but he had his own extensive 'library' and was not very good at keeping it a secret. "Blue squad will escort our Y-Wings to Tingis, and run interference as the Y-Wings ambush the Imperials as they drop out of Hyperspace. Guard those Y-Wings! There'll be at least a dozen other squads out there: Red, Green, Magenta, Copper, Burgundy, Yellow, Light Yellow, Dark Yellow, Really Dark Yellow..." One thing he couldn't understand about the Rebel fleet was that all the squads had colors, not numbers for identification. It wasn't so bad when the fleets were small, but when there are over 300 squads, colors can run out quite quicky. "... Apricot, and squad vermin, er vermillion." 

  
  


"Will we be facing any Imperial Gunships, sir?" that was Tarren, an X-Wing hot-shot, with 8 kills to his record. The guy was so stiff, he could almost see a metal rod down his back, forcing a perfect posture. 

  
  


"Yes, I suspect that there will be at least 3 dozen Imperial Gunships. Don't get cocky, one these ships is easily capable of wiping out an entire squad. Don't forget what happened to squad Mahogany." Wait a minute, Tarren did have rod down his back. He could see the head of a golf club poking out from underneath his shirt. "Don't try to take on one of them alone, that would be David v.s. Goliath." One of the things on the base we did for entertainment was reprogram protocol droids (which he thought were useless anyway), and use them in boxing matches against other droids. The winless one was one called David. Guo had a droid too, an old massive battle droid with built-in weapons. It took a lot of reprogramming, but he got it boxing well. He named it after a character in an ancient Human text. He hadn't finished reading it, but he had a good feeling about this 'Goliath.' "Of course, don't try to take on Star Destroyer by yourself. You all know what happened to Troy, our last squad leader. Leave them to the Y-Wings. That would be David v.s. Godzilla."

  
  


"For the last time, to not use Zilla's name in vain! My gods are not for your mocking!" That was Smilah, a rather unusual looking alien. Extraordinarily tall, due to its long neck. Very thin, pale skinned, and they had eyes that seem to have the galaxy reflected in them. Almost... hypnotic... "Guo, would you please stop staring at me?" Very touchy too at times, especially about their religion. 

  
  


"In the event that the Y-Wings you're escorting, squad Reddish-Orange, are destroyed, you're to take on the Imperial fleet in a skirmishing mode. That means you sting like a butterfly and float like a bee." Then Grigori lost control of the briefing.

  
  


"What would this 'butterfly' be?"

  
  


"Well, butter comes a cow, I think. So maybe there's a cow with wings."

  
  


"What of this 'bee'? I'm not well versed in Human ecology."

  
  


"Floating, hmm... Well those things that go 'Quack' float."

  
  


"A duck?"

  
  


"Yeah, that's it."

  
  


"So sir, you want us to sting like a bovine with wings, and float like an avian? Yes sir!" Sometimes you couldn't tell if Tarren was being sarcastic or enthusiastic. There was a very thin line between the two. Maybe there wasn't a difference, and the two were the same, just different interpretations, depending on the mood of the listener.

  
  


"Wait, I heard that saying before. Doesn't it go: Float like a butterfly-"

  
  


"Enough! You have your orders. Suit up and head to you craft. We launch in half an hour, right after squad Yellowish-Indigo," Grigori managed to yell loud enough to get over the inane chatter.

  
  


A few minutes later he was doing the pre-launch inspection. The R2 droid was already inserted in the craft. Sometimes he had the feeling that the droids were held more importantly than the pilots. Maybe it had to with the 'eject' button ejecting the droid instead of the pilot. Smilah was already in her X-Wing. The craft really was designed for a smaller creature. She looked all tangled in an knot. It was amazing she could fly it, but she could. With relative ease, he got into his cockpit. The R2 unit began beeping out information. He said aloud, "All carry-ons are in the underseat compartment. Seat is now in the upright position. Restraints are in place. All electronics are turned on. Ready to launch." 

  
  


The communicator crackled, buzzed, and went staticy. The signal struggled to get through, eventually it did force its way on the speaker. "Squad Aquamarine, you are cleared for launch."

  
  


He was rather confused by the signal, it was coming no more than a 10 kilometers away. It shouldn't be staticy. He checked the sensors, and then made a transmission to the control tower, "Control, you may want to switch to the short range communications. Your current signal bounces off a satellite in Tatoine before it returns here." The senior communication group was either killed or wounded in the Boba Fett raid. Luckily Admiral Jerad had survived, they would need his experience to match that of Lerutan.

  
  


Another signal from Control came in, loud and clear, "Uh... thank you. Blue squad is cleared for take off."

  
  


"Engaging engines now." The engine sputtered, and wheezed, but did not start. The R2 unit let out a loud constant series of beep and whistles. "Whoa, can you beep that in English?" A slower string of beeps came across the communication system, since the cockpit was almost sound proof. "Spast! Razorbacks! How did they get in the engine? Where's my blaster?" Then another series of worried beeps from R2. "No, I won't hit the fuel line. It's the green one right?"

An angry series of beeps came across the comm. "Okay, okay, it's the red one."

  
  


Several minutes and a few emergency duct tape repairs later, his craft took off. He looked up at the yellow sun as he heard the synchronous rumble of his squadron's engines. Then gradually he broke through the atmosphere. The sun turned to its natural white, and the rumble was reduced to only his own muffled engine. All seemed so peaceful, almost hypnotic and relaxing, like a car-ride for a infant. Then the R2 unit's incessant chirping came across the communicator. "What do you mean you're cold?" Another string of beeps. "Well, I suppose you are exposed to space; but so is every other R2 unit. I've never heard of any of them complain before." A rather moaning and draw out series of beeps. "I suppose you going to have to ask for that subroutine to be removed. What do you want me to do now? Put a blanket over you?" R2 angrily began another series of beeps, but was cut short when he cut off all auditory transmissions. Now he could meditate in the peace for a while.

  
  


He had heard of the Old Republic frequently, he was not old enough to have remembered it. He'd read about it whenever he could. He wished those days would return. Why hadn't the Rebellion officially called itself the 'New Republic' yet? The best time to do so would have been when they had taken Coruscant, the Imperial home world. He doubted that Rebels wanted to set up their own Empire, with their leaders as the rulers. The Empire at least understood economics. Most of the Rebels would probably thought that you need profit before you could have revenue. And all of them would have to sit down and listen to people they would have shot 6 months ago. So what were they waiting for? The question indeed needed more thought. 

  
  


He thought he heard the static sound of a transmission come through, but no voice came because he had muted it. He opened an eye and looked at the holographic display. The squad leader was holding a cardboard sign reading "Turn on your audio you idiot!" The squad leader then saw he was paying attention and began to yell at him. Not wishing to hear him, he switched his visual to another squad mate. She too was holding a cardboard sign. It read, "You're heading for the asteroid field". Then Guo looked out his cockpit window. An asteroid with a huge mine filled his entire screen. With a quick swerve he avoided it, and the device hadn't detonated. Either the mine was faulty, or you needed to be very close. He then swerved again to rejoin his squad. He turned on his audio. "You moron! Were you trying to get yourself killed? Do you know how much those R2 units and an X-Wing cost? I will-" He cut off the audio again. He didn't want to listen to that.

  
  


As he orbited Tingis he nearly dozed off. Then there was 8 Star Destroyers and a horde of smaller ships right in front of them. It was no illusion, nor was he lazy. When a ship came out of star drive it just suddenly appeared. The Star Destroyers let out their Tie Fighters and Tie Interceptors like a dog just come in from the rain shakes off water drops. Now he turned on his audio. "Alright! There they are, go get them boys! Kiros, you watch my back. The rest of you deal with the fighters, I'm going after the Capital Ships." Yes, Grigori was an action junky. You needed to be one to survive. Colored beams shot all around him like a disco-tech turned terribly wrong. Bright explosions went off like fire crackers during a celebration. Yet all he could hear was his engines, his guns, both muffled, his squad mate's chatter and the R2 unit beeping something that sounded like 'I'm going to die. I'm going to die.' The sound of hell wasn't demons laughing or the screams of those in pain, or the hiss and bubble of lava. It was silence, total silence. 

  
  


He noticed that there were no Imperial Gunships present. By sheer numbers the Rebels were winning gradually. Then a transmission came from Grigori, who was normally silent as possible in battle, "Check your sensors! We got dozens, no wait, make that hundreds of new contacts! They're not coming from near Tingis, but Coruscant! They're verified as Imperial. We're fighting a ruse! Squad leader to all pilots in the area, disengage and head for Coruscant. They won't hold out for-" Then Grigori's X-Wing exploded into a dozen shades of orange and red. Green bursts of Tie Fighter fire were puncturing the wreckage again and again. The R2 unit had managed to eject itself and now floated clear of its former ship. Then it was inhaled into the engine of a passing B-Wing, causing it to explode. His R2 unit let out a lamenting chirp. He immediately turned around his X-Wing and headed to Coruscant at maximum speed. The Imperials had won this skirmish by default, but whether they'd win the battle and the war was still up in the air. As demonstrated by the vapor trail of a damaged A-Wing in front of him.


	8. Jedis Just Want To Have Fun

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

  
  


Part Eight

  
  


The inside of Imperial torpedo was not the most comfortable place to hide in. She had sneaked into the armory on board the orbital station on Meru. There was a stack of large torpedoes just there, and a Mind Trick later the guard was immobilized. After emptying the insides every so delicately using a lightsaber, she climbed in and used The Force to reattach the top. Several hours later she had been smacked in every direction, rattled, and rolled. She was rather bruised. Her entire body had a warm, glowing feeling. In fact, she could actually see her elbow in a pale green light; or at least she thought it was her elbow. This may have not been the wisest place to hide in.

  
  


By her keen senses, approximately . . . a long time had passed. Judging by a huge jolt which was felt about a week ago, they had gone into hyperspace. They had dropped out an hour ago, if her sense of time was correct. Good, she wanted to get out badly. She was all bruised and cramped. Her lightsaber shaft was jutting into her abdomen, she was hungry, thirsty, and she had to use the bathroom really badly. Well, this was still a good hiding place. Where were the other Jedis hiding? Then she felt a sudden jerk and a brief 'whoosh' sound. The torpedo next her had just been launched! Okay, maybe this wasn't the best place to hide. She couldn't ignite her lightsaber with impaling herself, so she kicked and used The Force to smack a hole in the bottom and slid out.

  
  


She just lay there, in an empty room for a minute or two, regaining the feeling in her limbs. So they've started firing, they must be fighting at Coruscant. She tuned her senses to search for other Jedis. Hmm . . . the others were scattered around the ship. They were moving, converging at certain points. One of these points was nearby. She took her first speedy stride, and fell flat on her face. Her limbs were still asleep. A Jedi, the most powerful warrior in the galaxy, was reduced to limping and leaning on a wall to reach her objective. Scanning the room, she observed many computer mainframes loading, firing, and guiding the torpedoes. Good for a lightsaber warm up. Igniting it, she proceeded to turn millions of credits worth of machinery in molten silicon. Some parts of it caught fire, causing the sprinkler system to activate. She took no notice of that, she was more concerned with the alarm system she had just inadvertently activated. However, she took notice when a stream of water connected the lightsaber to a sparking circuit. The electric current from it coursed through the room and into her. She managed to switch off the lightsaber before collapsing to the floor. Great, her limbs were cramped, she's wet, she'd been shocked, irradiated, and she didn't even want to know what condition her hair was in. What a beginning to the mission. Certainly now the Imperials knew that something wrong was going on aboard the ship.

  
  


Stumbling then eventually walking out of the room, she felt three people coming towards her. Probably to inspect what was going on. She hid as she listened to them, "Dude, the plan worked perfectly. Dropped out of hyperspace right on top of Coruscant. Took 'em by surprise and now were pounding on them Rebels. No way we can lose."

  
  


"I've heard that before. I was a pilot of an At-At back on Hoth. Taken down by Luke Skywalker in a Speeder. Don't underestimate these Rebels."

  
  


"I plan on living a long time. Have you seen the pension we get? It's incredible and I plan on collecting it. I'm in a easy job, defending the most heavily armed Star Destroyer in the fleet. What could take this bird down?"

  
  


"A Jedi!"

  
  


"Sure. A solitary Jedi could destroy this ship? You're really too much of a pessimist."

  
  


"No! There's a Jedi behind you!" One of the Stormtroopers said reaching for his holstered blaster rifle.

  
  


"Ha ha, very funny. A Jedi behind us!," he turns around, "Ah Sithspit."

  
  


She blew one Stormtrooper though a display screen with The Force, deflected a shot from the second into the third one. The second one just kept of firing, and she deflected as many as she could, but the Stormtrooper's aim was too hurried to be accurate. None of the deflected shots hit him either. Eventually he ran out of ammunition and resorted to throwing the blaster rifle at her. She wasn't expected that and she didn't block it. The rifle smacked her in the face, but she stood her ground. Now she was mad. The Stormtrooper tried to run and pick up the blaster off a fallen comrade, but one doesn't move too fast in that armor. A quick stroke killed him. The next dozen strokes were for revenge for the past week. Triumphant, she jogged out of the room. On the way out, she heard the moaning of the Stormtrooper she had pushed through the display, "Can someone help me? I'm still alive, but I'm badly, badly cut. The armor really doesn't protect you very well. Anyone out there? I could use a first aid kit. Hello...."

  
  


Jogging through the maze-like corridors she listened to the ship. The ventilation system was whirring, the a distant thud of a weapon firing, and a 'zzzz' sound of the shields absorbing a shot. The shields sounded like a the galaxy's largest bug zapper. Now entering the main corridor, she sensed that a group of Jedis were nearby. The corridor ended in two doors. One was marked "Section Green 207a Corridor" and the other was marked "Bathroom." It was times like this she wished she could read English. She knew how to speak 4 languages from her native planet, including English; but she only could write in one. It was a fifty-fifty chance that she'd pick the right door, so she went into the one marked "Bathroom." 

  
  


She ran in and realized that it was a bathroom. It was alright, she did need to use it. Some one was in the far stall, because she could hear him singing, "... we've created life. With arms wide open, now everything has changed..." she banged on the door. "Now wait your turn. I know the rest of the toilets are busted, but it took me 15 minutes just to get my armor off. I will indulge you while we're waiting though. You know those new torpedoes we got? The K.Y.A.G. torpedoes? I figured out what K.Y.A.G. stands for: Kiss Your-" She used The Force to rip the door off the hinges and toss it aside. The partially dressed Stormtrooper now found himself on the wrong end of a lightsaber. At least he was sitting on the right seat to handle the surprise. "It's just one those days," were his last words before being impaled. She tossed him aside, kicked away the armor on the floor, and relieved herself. 

  
  


After she was done, she took a look at herself in the mirror. She had seen better days. Her hair was like a Wookie's, her skin was bruised blue in few areas, reminding her of a sunburned Rhodian. Her white tunic was blackened, burnt, and ripped in a few spots. Her face was bleeding a little, and was black and blue. However, her skin had healthy (she hoped) green glow to it. It really didn't matter though when you were a martyr. She quickly got a drink from the sink. Mmm... arsenic. Every place the water tasted different; regional flavoring she called it. This was one had heavy presence of minerals, with a tangy aftertaste, she thought while swishing it inside her mouth. With delicate traces of chlorine and bismuth. She splashed some on herself, and ran out of the bathroom and though the other door.

  
  


"Spast! What happened to you? Janitors too rough with you?" That was Marcus, one of Jedis who had proclaimed himself leader of this expedition. Young, poorly shaven, arrogant, and only a mediocre duelist, this guy could easily bite off more than he could chew. He was smart, in the absent minded sort of way. His shirt was on backwards and inside out.

  
  


"None of your business. I suppose you got here with even igniting your lightsaber."

  
  


"Yep, pushed 'em all over edges into impossibly deep pits. This ship is full of them; it's so sweet. Now let me take a look at your face." He was well attuned with The Force. He was one of the few cadets to have learned how to heal using The Force. Within a few seconds, here face was healed and cleaned off. "Alright, this feels like everyone in this section is here. According to a terminal behind us, we are far closer to the shield generator than the bridge. Bubba, Harold, Feaor, Alexander, Auhguk- Ashgak- Eshgek- err Esh, Janet, and myself will take care of the shield generator. Nuzbuit, Kweenar, and Emilia will run interference. Just pick a direction and hack away at anyone not a Light Jedi. Alright, let's move out!"

  
  


Great, she wasn't good enough to take on the powerful enemies, she had to distract the weaker ones as long as she could. It wasn't going to matter in the end, so she might as well follow the order. She picked a direction and ran. Now healed and muscles relaxed, she was almost artistic in how she killed the Stormtroopers. She even made a few games out of it. How many times she could slice a Stormtrooper before he fell down, without using The Force. Another one was to pull the blaster out their hands, and pull them back to towards her, and then let them try to make a run for it again. Who could of thought that being a Jedi could be so much fun? She wasn't even paying attention to where she was going. Another fun game was doing a Mind Trick on one of them, and have him shoot the rest of the squad. Yet another trick was to fling the remains of the fallen at the living. She wanted to take on a Dark Jedi though. She wanted to rid the galaxy of a creature that needlessly inflicted pain on others. Remove another leech on humanity.

  
  


She entered a different style of halls now. They were wider, better decorated, and cleaner. She must be in the officer's quarters, if not in the admiral's wing itself. She heard a 'clackety-clack' of a droid as it rolled around the corner. It unfolded, raised shields, and began firing a steady barrage of shots at her. Too much for her to reflect at once, used a Force Push to knock it off balance, dodged to the side, ran up a wall, jump off, and thrust her lightsaber right through the shield into the droid. Its bug zapper was not strong enough. She passed along the hall and rounded a corner. She could here in the distance a stiff human female voice shouting, "Hear that? the defense droid just went down. Defensive positions everyone! Crassus, take point. Green, take a flanking position. Marius, yeah, you stay near the exit. Lindson, take the safety off that blaster! Johnson, for Vader's sake, you got your helmet on backwards! Get ready for 'em." Then she rounded the corner and charged headfirst, lightsaber held high ready for a chop. "A Jedi?! Everybody retreat; get out of here! The Stormtrooper Sargent was holding a Mara Son rocket launcher. It was fired at her. She was running too fast to deflect it properly and it exploded in the ceiling before her, knocking her off her feet.

  
  


When the daze wore off, and she got back on her feet. Sparking wiring hung from the damaged ceiling. A rocket launcher in close quarter combat, what were they thinking? The Stromtroopers had fled. What were they here to protect? She saw a ornate door at the end of the hallway, with all sorts of insignia, the admiral's quarters. Maybe they were here to guard him. Maybe she could catch him on the toilet. The lightsaber made an excellent, if indiscreet lockpick and she was soon inside. Her impression of the room was best described as: This guy has some problems. Some charred darts stuck in the far wall, with a burnt piece of paper below it. One computer terminal had suffered a huge electrical overload, and was a pile of junk. Another computer terminal had some rather perverted screensaver on it. On a desk were maps, field guides, a dossier of an Imperial Lieutenant Zell, some empty bottles, and what appeared to a photograph of him in the Coruscant red light district years ago. Judging by the look on his face, he had just gone from relaxed to shocked in an heartbeat. On the desk was also a book. She looked at it. Master Yoda had written this! She read the cover: "How To Serve Naboo." She leafed through it. The thing was a cookbook! Suddenly she feared for her countrymen. But why would an admiral have a cookbook written by Yoda in his quarters? Surely he didn't prepare his own meals.


	9. The Other End Of The Sword

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

  
  


Part Nine

  
  


"... and it don't look good. Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!" Octavian softly sang as he listened to his ear piece playing classic human music. He was alone in an isolated, dusty corridor of the ship, armed with a broom, brush, and a dustpan. While the rest of ship containing tens of thousands of soldiers were preparing for battle, he was stuck sweeping the corridors. He wasn't sure if he lucky or unlucky. He never been in the firefight and therefore had been in excellent health his whole service record. However, how do write back home? 

  
  


'I'm fine. It's been a mostly uneventful few months. We've been in battles, but I've always been fighting my own war in the ship. Just recently I had a titanic battle against a whole Sarahar nest. I was lucky to come out with all my fingers.'

  
  


Normally, droids would take care of this menial task. However, as he was told, due to recent government cut-backs, sacrifices needed to be made. He argued that droids were cheaper than paid human labor. The lieutenant's response was that the sweeper droid factory was on Coruscant, and unless the Rebels would sell them some, he'd have to do their job. Then he tried to give him the 'part of the team' speech. The whole time he was searching for a loose blaster pistol to rid himself of the ineffective messenger.

  
  


He was stretching to clean the ceiling when the Aetius dropped out of Hyperspace. He fell over and raised a cloud of dust. He hated being an janitor, he really hated it. When the dust fell back down onto the previously clean stretches, he felt like just walking away. Then he heard a soft moaning in the distance. He slowly walked towards it. Down the hall, their was a broken ceiling panel and an Imperial officer, a Sargent by the looks of the incredibly dirty uniform. It was an interior suit, with no armor. He was moaning softly. What was he doing in the ceiling? Then he spied a metal cylinder in his hand. The uniform looked quite large for the person inside it. The guy then moved his finger on the metal cylinder and a green beam extended from the cylinder. A lightsaber! How did a Sargent get a lightsaber? Wait, this wasn't an Imperial officer, this was a Jedi trying to sneak aboard the ship. Just because he was a janitor didn't mean he was brainless. Now he really resented the policy of not arming janitors. So he did the only thing he could think of. He whacked the Jedi a few times with the broom and ran as fast as he could for an alarm consol. The nearest one was about 500 meters away, uhhh why did this ship have to be so large? He wasn't in the best shape.

  
  


Through a maze of corridors he ended up in one of the ships many barracks. A few dozen Stormtroopers were outside preparing for the invasion. The officers going down into the battle were in the black officer armor Vader had made so famous. They didn't have the cape, and carried a blaster rifles instead of lightsabers. They actively walking around in the bulky gear barking out orders. A few officers were of higher rank, in the interior uniform: a dark blue cloth suit with their medals dangling about for all to see. Real cotton, very expensive. They were standing back, observing with a smirk all that was going on. He immediately hit the nearest alarm console. The alarm rang throughout the section. That got everybody's attention, and they all turned to look at him. 

  
  


"You will immediately explain why you hit that alarm!" one of the officers in battle armor gave in a very commanding voice.

  
  


"There's an Lieutenant lying on the floor a few hundred (groan) meters back. Only he's not a Lieutenant, he's a Jedi in a Lieutenant's uniform."

  
  


"Now just how did you determine that this 'Lieutenant' was a Jedi?"

  
  


"He had a lightsaber."

  
  


"Now let's not be so hasty. The admiral has given lightsabers to all Imperial officers down to the rank of Major. Still, a Lieutenant should not have one. How do we know this not just a case of theft?" One of the officers in a cotton uniform said in a much calmer, almost laid back voice. Octavian noticed that this officer indeed had a lightsaber and a blaster pistol holstered. 

  
  


"There was a hole in ceiling. He had been hiding in it. He fell out when the ship dropped out of Hyperspace. He didn't look so good. I'd say he'd been in there a few days."

  
  


Before another officer could reticule him, the lights sent out. How did the Jedi know how to cut the lights? A scream and an electrical buzz in the distance told that it was most likely a 'beneficial' accident. "All right men, activate thermal vision, weapons at ready." One of the officers barked out.

  
  


"We got thermal vision? Ah, cool everything's in red."

  
  


"Yes, yes, but do see anything besides us?" That was one the officers in the cotton uniforms. 

  
  


"Well got some small red things moving towards the big red things."

  
  


"Something far off in the distance is bright white." The scream in the distance came back to memory. 

  
  


The officers barked orders. The alarm rang out. He couldn't see anything. The dark blue officers had lightsabers, so why didn't they ignite them? Surely they must know how to use them. Why would they be given lightsabers and not know how to use them? Besides the alarm and occasional remark from a Stormtrooper, it was eerily quiet. His earpiece was still in his ear and was playing another classical human track "It's My Life." The lyrics that playing now were "... I'm not going to live forever..." He stared out into the blackness expecting to see the red eyes of some demons to penetrate the blackness. Instead, at least 8 beams of light all colors burst forth and came rushing forward. 

  
  


"Fire at will!"

  
  


"Which one's Will?"

  
  


"They all are!"

  
  


The whole Stromtrooper company opened fire, and between the glow of the lightsabers, the laser beams firing and being bounced back, the wide corridor was flashed in an inconsistent light. He froze in place, broom still in hand. When the 'zroom' of the lightsabers combined with the screams of Imperials, the eternal debate of fight or flight was resolved in favor of flight.

  
  


He turned and ran away from the firing, with reflected blaster shots going to the left and right him. He cleared the Stromtroopers and thought he was home-free when 3 more beams ignited in front of him. The Jedis had laid a trap! He still had him broom, maybe he could out-duel them. No! No! No! That wouldn't worked, wait maybe this would. He ran straight at them and used his broom as a pole vault, lifting him off the ground. He made contact with the ceiling and a lightsaber cut through the shaft. He cleared the Jedis and more or less landed on his feet. Dropping the remnant of the broom, he ran off as fast as he could. He could hear the patter of feet from only one Jedi behind him. 

  
  


He just kept running. He passed into the light as he went into a new section with separate wiring for the lights. There was a door he recognized, that of the galley. Quickly he opened the door, ran into the kitchen and closed the door. He didn't move away from it though. He waited until he hear the Jedi about to reach the door, and swung open the heavy metal door as fast as he could. He felt a huge impact as the Jedi slammed into the door, and the lightsaber pieced it a few centimeters below his arm. He carefully let go and ran farther into the galley. He spied a fire extinguisher on the wall, he picked it up, ran behind a counter and sprayed the area in front of him in the foam. The Jedi, certainly angry, tore the door off its hinges, and ran into the galley right at him. 

  
  


He finally saw his pursuer clearly for the first time. It was a human male. He couldn't tell the race, his face was too blackened and dirty. He was wearing a cloth shirt, blacked and ripped. He was obviously angry, his nose looked broken. Too blinded with rage to notice the foam. He lost his balance and fell just as Octavian ducked behind the counter. He heard a thump as the Jedi slammed into the counter. A 'zzzz' sound and then a too brief scream. He looked up and saw that the Jedi was on his back, with his lightsaber piercing through his abdomen. He breathed a sigh of relief as he slid back down to the floor. Then the humming of the lightsaber stopped, and he heard movement. Then a few groans and the humming of soft energy. How the heck do you kill one these guys? 

  
  


The Jedi was talking to himself as he healed, "Now, I just had to botch learning the Mind Trick This would have been so much easier. I had to stay with the lightsaber training. They were so bright and fun. Errr..." 

  
  


While the Jedi was saying this, he was searching for a new weapon. Spatula? No. Steak Knife? This guy had just been impaled by his own lightsaber and it just slowed him down. Whisk? NO! Frying pan? It was the best thing here. The track in his earpiece changed. It was screaming in his ear "We will we will rock you..." 

  
  


"Now there is two ways we can end this. The easy, painless way, or the Narok hunt way..." the Jedi said rather calmly as he leaned over the counter. The frying pan then made contact with his face. The Jedi went down, facial features even more distorted. He made a run for the door. He slid upright across the foam and was out the galley. He was barely out the door, when he heard something close to an animal roar, and the rapid succession of footfalls behind him. He didn't want to look behind him, but he did anyway.

  
  


He was angry, very angry. His face was messed up and bleeding. The green glow of the lightsaber set his face in a shadow pattern that revealed a demonic, insane smile. There was a cauterized and partially healed hole in his abdomen. He definitely did not want to get too near to this guy. What had he done to deserve this? Had hadn't shot any civilians, or even used a weapon in battle. He'd just done his job, and now he had an omnipotent warrior with nothing on his mind but to turn him into spam. What did he do to deserve this homicidal rage? He wasn't his father, the ruled out the infamous patriarchal rage of Luke Skywalker; or at least he hoped he wasn't. There was that shore leave on Gyran.

  
  


He passed a window on his right. There was a huge Imperial fleet out there. Then he felt a tug on his body. He was being draw backward. He grabbed a hold in the wall. It was a switch and it was opened as he was tugged off his feet backward. A door closed in front and behind the Jedi, who was now beside the window. Now separated from the Jedi by a door a half a meter thick, the tug stopped and he got to his feet. Leaning against the wall, he hit another switch. The Jedi was about to cut through the door when the airlock opened and he saw sucked out of the ship. Breathing heavily, he leaned against the wall and began walking away. His hand tripped the door switch, and he felt another tug on his. Everything went cold as he heard his earpiece playing "Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey goodbye." 


	10. The First Grand Melee

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

  
  


Part Ten

  
  


Darth Liche gazed out the view screen in the bridge, ops, whatever it was currently being called. A massive Imperial fleet lay before him. The hundreds of Star Destroyers and lesser capital ships were sprawled across Hyperspace. All moving at the same speed, the only way to tell they were moving at all was the looking at the Hyperspace. A swirling mass of red flowing... uh, he didn't know quite was flowing around the ship. But the hypnotic image was not to be looked upon after a drink, it caused the urge to use the bathroom for no reason.

  
  


He hoped that the navigators had planned the coordinates carefully. The typical jump had the destination at the edge of the system. They were attempting to end the jump less than 200 million kilometers from Coruscant. They were going incredibly faster than the speed of light and if a moon of a planet got in their way... Now, having a Star Destroyer accidently hit Coruscant would create a an excellent surprise attack. Judging from some of the crew of this ship, he wouldn't be surprised if it happened. He remember the results of a skirmish a while ago, with a Lamba class ship going to Hyperspace with their shield generator destroyed. It had traveled through a dust cloud during the jump, and when it arrive back at the Cairn space station it looked fine. However, when repeated communications got no response, a team was sent out to investigate. The ship resembled a sieve, with millions of tiny holes all throughout the ship. These calculations would have near impossible 200 years ago. It required knowing the last digit of pi: Zero. In retrospect it seemed so obvious. 665 terabytes of data all recording the digits of pi in every ship capable of Hyperspace jumps.

  
  


The man responsible for this vast gathering of Imperial might stood before him. Admiral Lerutan, proud, dignified, with a fabric softener sheet poking up from the neck hole. We were heading to Waterloo, for certain. Whether Lerutan was Napoleon or Wellington was still to be determined, he shared characteristics of both. He was Wellington in the way he was fighting to restore a dying dynasty to power. He was Napoleon in the way his Empire went from omnipotent to impotent and had a major comeback for ultimate conquest. 

  
  


Whatever dead person he resembled, he needed to be eliminated. He was his master in the Jedi arts, his commander in Imperial military, and he knew him. He was just like his father, he reached too far. Palpatine was at his peak not when he was Emperor, but when he Chancellor in the Old Republic. He ruled it in secret, and everybody was powerless to stop that which they did not know. The way of the Sith was to rule from the shadows. Look what the supposed might of The Empire under Palpatine had brought him: the hatred of most of the galaxy, open rebellion, chaos, and death from his student. Time to extend the practice one generation further. I guess all the economic reports he had heard were correct, employee loyalty was experiencing a downturn. That had some ill effects for some of us. Like that overeager Lieutenant Zell. He was so ready to try and kill the Admiral, and so incredibly incompetent at carrying it out. Well if wanted to have something done right, get at Dark Jedi to do it. If you are a Dark Jedi, then do it yourself.

  
  


Never give a person a lightsaber unless you knew where they were going to point it. That was an obvious rule. In Lerutan's desperate search of disciples he picked all of those who showed talent. Thus, he never did instill a sense of loyalty, only knowledge and battle skills. The Rebel's Jedi academy violated another obvious rule: Now kids, don't try this at home. The war needed to end, now. It was only killing people who could be made unknowing pawns. What would happen if the rebellion was crushed? Nothing, only a new one would rise in its place. What if The Empire was crushed? Well, first off he his behind would become Jerafana rind. The Rebels didn't have a clue how to govern, or how to work an economic system, it'd be chaos. Amazingly, what was needed was peace, that preserved both sides. Then the sith could wage a shadow war, under his command, as were what they excelled at. 

  
  


He first realized that Lerutan had to go several years back, during a mission on Dhjose. He was fighting a Jedi girl that was attempting to sabotage the base. He dueled with the girl in the exact way he had been taught to. At least 10 minutes had passed with no one gaining the advantage. There was a squad of Stromtroopers behind them, enjoying the show. One of them gave the sarcastic suggestion that he should use The Force to turn off her lightsaber. He tried it and it worked. If a tactic so simple a Stormtrooper could think of it, the admiral (then captain) should have obviously have thought of it too. Lerutan hadn't though. He realized then that idiots were running the show, they needed to go, and stronger, smarter ones take their places.

  
  


The Empire was dying anyway. When the first Deathstar blew up, The Empire's future went with it. Now the course of the war then followed its logical route. Then Lerutan had to show up. His new weapons were only dragging this out further. However, this battle would resolve the fate of The Empire. He estimated 80% of all The Empire's military might, close to 10 billion soldiers were going to attempt to retake the Imperial home world. With such a drain of manpower everywhere else, the Rebels were making gains, and several worlds had been revolting on their own, as Ru had been an example of. The longer this lasted, the worse it would get for The Empire. The new recruits were idiots. Otherwise they would be fighting for the Rebels. No wonder the motto of The Empire had officially become 'Die, rebel scum.' As if on cue, a Stormtrooper patrolling the bridge tripped over a step. He did that naturally, Darth Liche didn't even have use any Force powers to induce it. Unfortunately, an assassination had to wait for the right moment, so he wouldn't get killed along with Lerutan. Until that time, he'd have to follow the savant's orders. He rather arm wrestle a Wokkie, it'd be less painful.

  
  


"30 seconds until we drop out of Hyperspace!" shouted one of bridge crew. Great, now the bad part of being a lackey of this admiral. He was now going to take direct control of their minds so that the first shots would be perfect and efficient. Now he had to get the thoughts of assassination out of his head and replace them with happy thoughts. How did clouds always look like everyday things? His body went rigid and he was unable to move his arm, or any other part of his body. He was still able to observe with his senses. Communications crew were quickly, yet methodically telling the other ships coordinates for the critical first strike. 

  
  


The plan was a simple bit of trickery. A mere billion soldiers would lure out the Rebels around the edge of the system. Meanwhile the rest of the armada would jump out of Hyperspace only 200 million kilometers from Coruscant. That was spitting distance for these weapons. Providing they didn't miscalculate and end up ramming the planet, we should raise shields and get off a first volley before the planetary defenses or orbiting patrols could react. 

  
  


The weapons officer was playing his console like a jazz era musician plays a piano. He could feel the vibration at 10's of thousands of Stromtroopers marching in perfect unison to the assault pods. The harder vibrations of At-at's, At-st's, and Walkers plodded to their pods. He shouldn't be able to feel that. Either he was experiencing feedback from the mind control, or this ship was as well built as cardboard box. Then the red swirling mass of Hyperspace yielded to show Coruscant. The massive city planet with an atmosphere so polluted in the slums that it was supposedly equivalent to be exposed to a dozen canisters of Agent Blue (one of the admiral's inventions) every day. How was he supposed to know the freaking things were addictive? One large city, well this would give the term collateral damage a whole new magnitude. The Imperials had evacuated Coruscant, instead of fighting a surely unwinnable battle, so this planet was still untouched from the war. 

  
  


Turning his attention to the bridge, some of the crew was rattled from the exit, one was even thrown from his seat. He wasn't the only Dark Jedi in the bridge. Darth Meadist, Seadist, Geanosclyde, Claw, Fred, and about a dozen other Sith in training were in the bridge. The Dark Jedi were loyal to Lerutan, another hindrance to his 'promotion'. That reminded him, there were others in this room with lightsabers. Most of the officers had them. The admiral, thinking that the few Dark Jedi he had were insufficient to guard the ship had given the officers the lightsabers. They didn't have clue how to use them, and were smart enough not to use them. The purpose was that Lerutan could take over any of their minds and use them as a makeshift Sith if needed.

  
  


Still unable to move his body, he was tempted to openly defy Lerutan's will. He really needed a cigarette badly. He was distracted from that by a rather spectacular light show. As Imperial Gunships (another of the Admirals inventions that would only prolong this conflict) and Tie Fighters were launched, all the capital ships opened fire. For a moment the planet was obscured by the explosions of the orbiting Rebel craft. Before it cleared the second volley was fired and further explosions occurred as the planetary shield generator died. There were still far stronger shield generators guarding critical sites, but now the troops could be landed. As if on cue from his thoughts, thousands of pods were launched at Coruscant. Half of the pods contained troops or their machina, the other half were absolutely huge canisters of Agent Blue. 

  
  


The most important tasks done, the Admiral finally gave people back their bodies. Most breathed a sigh of relief, but he reached for his lighter and a packet of cigarettes. After a few pats turned up empty for the lighter, he remember that it was back in his quarters. He really needed it, how could he light up without using one of them? His lightsaber was there... he pulled it out and ignited it and used it to light the end of the cigarette. As he shut off the lightsaber, the Admiral spoke to him without turning his head, "Those things will be the death of you, as they will the death of so many on this planet." He was tired of hearing that. He was in a war where 10's of thousands of people died every day. He was in a battle were billions would die in a matter of hours. He standing behind the most targeted person in the entire Empire. A few cigarettes weren't going to be what killed him.

  
  


Lerutan certainly was more relaxed than he should be. He must be too confident of victory. He took a sip from a cup next to his chair. "This coffee is cold!" was his remark. Outside dozens of ships were exploding and the occasional shot was hitting their shields and fizzled out. Lerutan had spent his entire adolescent and adult life in the Imperial military. Whether it was natural to have ships blow up around him, or he was completely nuts escaped him. Then again, it could be both. Lerutan sat down in his captain's chair, reclined it back, and watched the battle with a smug look. Several minutes passed as intricate display of flashing lights and detonations danced around on the view screen. He wasn't a master tactician, but it appeared that the Rebels were losing many more ships than the Imperials. A few of the planetary defenses were destroyed or overrun. One by one the lights so bright that could be viewed from orbit went out. Blue clouds were visible on the view screen.

  
  


All the while the crew was shouting information at the admiral. He was calm and answered most of the statements with, "Acknowledged major." Then came a statement that peaked the admiral's interest, he instantly sat up and barked, "Are their any other reports of damage to the ships systems?"

  
  


"Just some aft torpedo tubes disabled... wait... something else's coming in. Major Brutus is reporting that there are intruders near barrack 103b indigo... Sir, he's saying that he's facing Jedi... I lost the transmission."

  
  


"You should have reported any damage to the ship, however minor, immediately! How else could sustain damage if the shields are still at 95%? Fool!" With that Lerutan gave the major a Force slap and stood up. "Darth Liche, Darth Geanosclyde, Darth Fred and 4 other Sith-in-training and defend the shield generator. Darth Meadist, Darth Seadist, and Darth Claw follow me to my personal armory. The rest of you stay here and prepare the bridge defenses."

  
  


He quickly picked out his 4 rookie Dark Jedis. "(wheeze) Follow me (cough). We have no time to waste (hack)!"

  
  


One of the responses from the peanut gallery was, "When do we ever have time to waste?"

  
  


Quickly the 7 of them started to sprint, but Darth Fred tripped over the foot rest of the captain's chair. Once he got up, with a grumbling remark from the admiral, they started off toward the shield generator. It was quite a sprint from the bridge. He was quite out of breath when they reached it. After recovering a few minutes from leaning against the wall, he began to sense for others. He rest of his lightsaber yielding entourage were behind him, with the exception of Darth Fred, who was struggling a few minutes behind. There were other lesser humanoid life forms around them, including a surprised and uninformed Stormtrooper security squad already assigned to protect the shield generator. He sensed no Jedis. It was just like the cave back on Ru. He sent the Stormtrooper squad out to guard the entrance of the corridor. He'd be able to feel when they died, and so get his early warning usually afforded directly by his senses.

  
  


He and the rest of group ignited their lightsabers and waited. He and Fred (if he ever showed up) were in the traditional Dark Jedi hoods and robes, as were the rookies. Darth Claw and Darth Geanosclyde were in officer's interior uniform. The rest had the standard sabers, but he had the double lightsaber, which he referred to as the lightstaff. Eventually, he felt Darth Fred running down the corridor to the shield generator room. He could hear the wailing in the distance. "Yahhh, what did I ever do to you?" Darth Fred kept running and he felt the Stormtroopers die. Darth Fred wasn't competent or stupid enough to eliminate a squad of Stormtroopers so quickly. 

  
  


"They're coming! Follow me." he started forward. At the entrance of the monstrously huge room he saw 5 Jedis chasing a witless Darth Fred down the hall. Once Fred saw the 6 Dark Jedis coming forward, he stopped, regained his nerve, and turned to face his pursuers. It was 7 on 5, good odds. He charged forward leading the rest of his group toward the charging Jedis. He locked sabers with a rather dirty, blackened Jedi. What had happened to him? As the lightsaber pulsed and crackled as the Jedi slowly forced the blades toward him. Well, he'd locked one of his blades, but the lightstaff had two blades. With a forward movement of the body, he brought the second blade through the Jedi, cutting him in half with a diagonal slit through the chest to the abdomen. 

  
  


Further crackling and sparking as the rest dueled behind him. He heard a scream, it sounded like Darth Fred's. It was followed by the rattle as his lightsaber hit the floor. Before he could turn around and look, he heard something behind him. He turned around and saw a some green Jedi charging at him. He had no hair, but green blobs of flesh that were curved. His lightsaber was held above him ready for a downward chop. Surprised, he used a Force Push to send the green alien flying through the air toward the wall. He landed on it with his feet and pushed off just as his lightstaff impaled the wall were the alien used to be. Quickly he parried a thrust from the alien behind his head. He spun around and using flowing, fast movements attempted to beat down the Jedi's guard. This one was much faster than the one he had cut in half. With all his slashes parried, he noticed the aliens fatal error. He didn't keep his thumb on the switch of his lightsaber. With a quick motion of The Force his lightsaber was off. He gave the Jedi a jump kick to the face. The alien lay on the ground and a quick downward thrust killed him.

  
  


He now had time to take a quick look around. The 2 Jedi he had killed and 3 Dark Jedi were dead on the floor. One of the 3 remaining Jedi, a female from the look of it, was taking on 3 of the rookies and putting them to shame. She parried a thrust from one of them, while kicking another one in the abdomen that was behind her, then ducked a stroke from the third. In a few seconds she jumping off the head of one of the rookies. But where the two other Jedis? The whirr of a lightsaber to left and right told him he had just been flanked. He could hear the footsteps as they ran towards him. No time to think, plan, or trick, he did the only thing he could. He ducked and held his lightstaff level above him, one end pointing at each of his attackers. To his surprise he heard 2 screams, one male and one female. He looked up and saw each Jedi was impaled on an end of the lightstaff. Then each dropped their lightsabers and fell backwards in unison. He got up and surveyed his handiwork: 4 Jedis in less than 2 minutes. He didn't want to be caught unaware, so he turned to look at the last living Jedi. She was about to finish off a rookie that lay on the ground when she got a lightsaber to the back from a rookie behind her. The one on the ground rolled off to the side as she fell down. He looked around and saw the third rookie that had been dueling her. He was groggily, slowly getting up from sitting against the wall. Judging from the dent in the wall above him, he'd received a rather nasty Force Push into the wall. 

  
  


There, all five Jedis were dead, and we'd only lost 3 Dark Jedi. He was quite winded and lay for a few seconds wheezing against the wall. He was about to say, "We got them all. The admiral will be pleased," when two more Jedis came around the corner. They advanced slowly, taking in all information. 4 living Dark Jedis, 3 dead Dark Jedis, and 5 dead Jedis, 0 living Jedis. 

  
  


Both were male, one spoke softly to the other, "See what happens, Alexander, when they don't wait for the leader? I told them to wait for ol' Marcus, but no. They had to rush ahead." Then his face went grim, and charged forward shouting, "Freedom!"

  
  


The other Jedi, having more sense, turned around and ran away shouting, "Longevity!" The one that charged forward took out a rookie with a chop. Poor guy was the one that had smashed against the wall. Anyway, a quick stroke of the lightstaff decapitated the nuisance.

  
  


"You two (hack), go guard the console. (wheeze) Send a transmission to the admiral asking him for immediate backup.(wheeze) I'll take out the last one before he gathers reenforcements (cough)." With that he ran forward and was about to round the corner the last Jedi come from, when an ignited lightsaber was thrust out from around the corner. His head ran into it.

  
  


Alexander pondered his situation. He was the last Jedi left to take the shield generator. He'd taken out the apparent leader, and two Dark Jedi were left. How could he take them both out? He spied the double lightsaber of the leader. With a Force Pull it was with him behind cover. He used his own lightsaber to cut the double lightsaber in 2 normal lightsabers. With those two in hand he stepped out from behind the wall he had been hiding behind. He threw both lightsabers, one at each Dark Jedi next to what appeared to control console of the glowing, humming contraption, which he hoped was the shield generator. One was trying do something on the console and didn't even see it coming and slumped to the floor. The other one did see it coming and jump up 5 meters to avoid it. That lightsaber sliced through some circuitry, causing a small explosion that threw the still midair Dark Jedi down a shaft in the room that had no visible bottom. That Dark Jedi's scream still barely audible, he rushed to the console. Which button to push? He couldn't just hack away at it. It could just cause another explosion that would kill him and leave the generator operational. He needed to press the right button. He was a chef before he went to an academy, not an engineer. Lacking a better candidate, he pressed the red button.

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  



	11. Brief Reign

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

  
  


Part Eleven

  
  


Jedis to the left of him, Jedis to the right of him, the remains of Stormtroopers at his feet. So this is what it all lead to. Another slaughter like dozens before them. Except maybe there was a chance to bring this all to an end here, now. His hands gripping the lightsaber felt so very weary. The bridge was somewhere ahead of him. He and 16 other Jedis were heading toward the bridge to stop the Imperial Juggernaut before another planet fell. He felt like he was Theseus wandering the labyrinth in search of the Minotaur. Instead of string he was unwinding to find his way back later, it was the wick of one those cartoonish spherical bombs. Ironically the wick would be lit by his allies, the Rebels; fore as soon as those shields dropped... He had to get through the labyrinth, slay the Minotaur and get out before the hole thing went up in fire and explosions so bright that they would serve as the grandest liberation day fireworks display Coruscant had ever seen. Hopefully he wouldn't be part of it. He didn't have anything left right now, but he can always rebuild. He didn't like the idea of being a martyr, people probably just spell his name wrong. Besides, wouldn't it make sense that there would be escape pods near the bridge?

  
  


"Merac, hurry up! Were going to need to get everyone we can get. Don't go chicken on us." That was Gras, probably the most experienced Lightsaber dueler, aside from Luke, in this whole operation. Did this operation have name? Strange, he thought it would. Operation Die Imperial Scum? Operation Brief Reign? Operation Final Battle 2? 

  
  


His thoughts were interrupted by the faint sound of something inside one of the supply closet. Ripping open the door using The Force, he found a Stormtrooper cowering inside. "Please don't. I have a wife and kids," the guy whimpered out.

  
  


"I used to as well."

  
  


"What happened to them?" He knew the answer to the question he asked. He just wanted to live another few seconds more.

  
  


"You and your buddies did." The next two sounds were the 'zruum' of the lightsaber and a thump. Did he even have a weapon? Oh well, slice first ask questions later was the modus operandi (MO) of this war. 

  
  


If it hadn't of been his, home planet would never have been attacked. He'd still be living a comfortable life while the rest of the galaxy blew itself up. He would have had 4 living reasons not to join the Jedi academy. Still, was vengeance taking hold? He'd had 8 years to deal with it. He remembered a quote from Yoda that Luke had told the academy, "Side the Dark, tempation of resist, must you. Fail you if, butt kick your, I will." He wasn't quite sure what it meant. But it had the words Dark, butt, and kick, so either it was an description of the powers of Dark Jedis, or his a type of jeer of what we'd do to the them. Why did the little guy speak like that? Did he have a stroke or something? Or maybe this is how the guy thought. He'd been in the academy since Luke created it, shortly after the battle of Endor. His powers had surfaced themselves during the battle of Hoth.

  
  


"Imperials! There's at least two squads in a corridor at 9 o'clock!" 

  
  


Turning as quickly as possible, he was just in time to see an Imperial Heavy Repeater discharge a photon grenade right at him. The blue swirling mass of energy with a white core came flying at as blaster fire also erupted from either side of it. No time to dodge, he decided block it the only way he could: he put his lightsaber between him and the grenade. Another one of Yoda's quotes was sheepishly sounding in his head, "Morning, in the, sting, will this."

  
  


He must of closed his eyes, because he didn't see what happened to the grenade. He heard a tremendous explosion and felt wind and debris fly past him. Then he opened his eyes to discover that the wall in front of him and to the right now desperately needed a new layer of paint. A Jedi next to him had her hand outstretched from just having done a Force Push. Ge's next trick was to throw her lightsaber through the guy who had launched the grenade. Unfortunately, her only means of defense now gone, a battle droid shot her. Another Jedi rushed up to heal her but was in turn shot. Then another rushed up to heal them both and was shot. As a third Jedi rushed forward he got the bright idea to take out the battle droid. With a burst of speed forward and a few chops, the shields fell and the droid was destroyed. Inspired by his brilliant display of tactics, a few Stormtroopers nearby fell from the blades of the Jedis. Then Ge's lightsaber, like a trusty boomerang, returned to the master who had thrown it. He hoped somebody back there would catch it, or at least see it coming.

  
  


The surviving Stormtroopers then began to retreat. Except for one or two that were Force Pulled back and summarily sliced, half dozen survivors got away. He slowly walked forward and looked at the helmet of a fallen trooper. He saw reflected in the eye covers his home land. Smoking and desolate. Well ordered streets and buildings reduced to gray pebbles, and dust, with the occasional block of defiant concrete standing up. The cold wind blowing through the streets, bits of clothing rustling in it. Not wanting to see it over and over again as he had the past 8 years he tried to remove the image from the eye covers with a series of kicks.

  
  


"Whoa, save your energy. There are plenty more where these guys came from. Besides, why kill drones when the king bee is within your grasp?"

  
  


"There's no such thing as- oh never mind. The person ultimately responsible for this is already dead. Vader beat me to it. Lucky jerk." Amazingly he was the most in control and ready to move on than he had been in years. Right after the attack he had joined the Rebellion. He tried to deal with loss by fighting in the bloodiest war in known history. That was the equivalent of trying to dose a flame with gasoline. He remember much of those years, it was such a frenzy. Luckily for him was one of the gifted few with Jedi powers, brought out by the anger and the years of exertion fighting The Empire. As soon as the academy opened about a year ago he joined. According to Luke, one could not fight with anger with his heart, so had to contain it. The calm and the fury still contested for control, but at least now he saw hope. He was grateful for Luke as a teacher, without him he would have been no better than the Sith. 

  
  


He turned around to see Ge and the three Jedis who were shot in succession trying to heal her during the firefight. She was dead. Her returning lightsaber had gone right through her, and taken off the arm of the Jedi behind her. The others beside Ge were still alive and being healed of their blaster wounds by the rest of the Jedis. Her lightsaber was on the floor behind her, still ignited. He slowly reached over and turned it off. He'd always found Ge quite attractive. She wasn't the overall brightest person in the academy, but a quick thinker. She always dressed as if it was 10 warmer than it actually was. He let out a long sigh.

  
  


"I- I can't feel my left arm!" he heard to his side.

  
  


"There's a good reason for that." He looked down at his own left arm. Everything below the shoulder was mechanical. The Jedi Academy was a tough school. One slip and the blade would go right through you. The instant cauterization of the wound prevented bleeding or infection. Even though the nerve was effortlessly severed, it still hurt, a lot. Most of the populace seemed ignorant of this. Good thing for the improved artificial limbs technology. It had advanced quite rapidly over the last few years. He heard that when Vader had his right arm severed it had been replaced by a machine-looking bronze colored replacement. The new arms felt and looked quite real.

  
  


It was really quite a good symbol. A mechanical arm, tireless, unchanging, only deteriorating until it is unuseable, hating forever. Then his real arm, weaker maybe, warm, constantly healing, regenerating, able to hope. Runne, the Jedi who had just lost his arm, could be healed and ready to struggle on in few moments. He doubted they'd just run across an artificial arm somewhere on the ship, so he'd have to only use his Force powers, he obviously couldn't wield a lightsaber now. Such a harsh reality, but if being front lines of the war for 8 years had taught him anything, he'd have to accept reality. He only hoped Runne knew that now, rather than having to realize it in time.

  
  


Unexpectedly, the intercom came alive, "Strike Force 5 to the Aetius, the assault on the Emperor's palace has come to within 100 kilometers of the objective. It is bogged down by heavy Rebel resistance in the rubble. Requesting planetary bombardment at co-ordinates... -what do you mean I'm using the wrong frequency?"

  
  


"How much further to the bridge? They can't hold out for long."

  
  


"The Imperials will never retake the planet, the Rebels will fight to the last person."

  
  


"Still, we should finish this quickly. These endless skirmishes only waste time and personnel."

  
  


"Wasting personnel? I lost my arm! What am I supposed to do now?" That was Runne, now hysterical. That was understandable, he went through the same thing. The feeling of uselessness would last for a while. 

  
  


"Can you heal with one arm?" It was a rather callous question to ask, but it was important. "You can still push and pull using The Force. Think of yourself as the designated medic." Those were some of the most unsympathetic words he'd ever spoken, but that was the way it needed to be. He was healed from the blaster wound and there was no behind the lines to put him to wait out the battle. We certainly couldn't just leave him here.

  
  


"We must hurry! Do you how many people are dying down there? -"

  
  


"There are plenty of people dying in here."

  
  


"Where do you think that air vent leads?" Harrus was looking up at a grate in the ventilation system. "I'll bet it leads right to the bridge."

  
  


"How would you know that?"

  
  


"I saw a schematic of a Star Destroyer once. Besides what you suggest we do, stop and ask for directions?" Harrus was definitely not a natural navigator, nor was he the slimmest person here.

  
  


"Why not? All we have to do is take a Stormtrooper alive."

  
  


"Well you can. I'm going to take the easy way." With that he cut open the grating in the ceiling and leaped into the vent. After a few seconds of shuffling, a muffled sound came from the vent. "Well, what do we have here? Ow! AH! Get away little Sarehar! Away! Ow! Nasty aren't you?" Then he ignited his lightsaber and it poked through the shaft as he tried to kill the thing. Several slashes later, it stopped and his muffled voice was heard again, "I'm okay. Those little things pack quite a bite to them. Go on ahead, I'll get the drop on them- OW!"

  
  


"Another Sarehar?"

  
  


"No, those metal edges are sharp."

  
  


Shaking his head and stifling a burst laughter, he lead the group forward. Time to navigate the maze to find the Minotaur. Twenty steps later he was at a door that read "Bridge Entrance." Now he left out the laughter.

  
  


"What's so funny?" Harrus' voice was barely audible.

  
  


(Aloud) "Nothing, just some graffiti on the wall." (Softly to the others) "Do really want to that guy watching your back?" (Normally) "Now this is it. Before we go in, I think it would be appropriate to say one of Yoda's proverbs Master Luke told us. 'Head my not is a cupholder.' I don't know what it means, but master Luke said it like he was proud of our accomplishments. Maybe we avoided doing something he did. I say we make him proud again!"

  
  


With that they opened the door and rushed in. They didn't catch the admiral unaware. In the room there were half a dozen battle droids, two dozen Stormtroopers, a dozen officers with guns, another dozen with lightsabers, 6 Dark Jedi in hoods, 3 Dark Jedi with special weapons and Darth Vader armor, and one Admiral Lerutan of the Imperial Eighth Fleet and defacto Emperor all facing them. There were 15 Jedis barely inside the room. Behind them was large view screen with the titanic battle raging on it. What appear to be a mushroom cloud from a tactical fusion explosion was rising from the surface of Coruscant, dwarfed by black smoke from a huge series of firestorms, with tinges of blue through it. The planet itself seemed afire, dying.

  
  


The officers with lightsabers looked like zombies. With rigid limbs, glazed eyes, and completely unresponsive to the world. What was this, a new Imperial drug? Three Dark Jedis had weapons he'd never seen before. One had a lightsaber connected to each arm above the hand, with extensive guards to prevent the wearer from accidentally slicing off a finger. Another had a weapon best described as a lightsaber pickaxe. A double lightsaber mounted on a long shaft which was mostly protected by the same energies the lightsaber used, leaving a exposed point where the three blades met. The last one had what looked like lightpike. With a blade as long as an entire double lightsaber, it had a grip twice as long any other lightsaber he'd seen. Where the blade met the grip there where 4 tiny blades, each at 90 to the grip, providing a hand guard. 

  
  


Lastly there was Admiral Lerutan. Behind his three specially equipped Sith he smiled at them. His white beard was crumpled from wearing a helmet, his mouth barely curled so its tips were hidden by his graying moustache, a small scar on his left cheek a mark from his martial life, his brown eyes piercing, his hairline receding. He was wearing Darth Vader armor as well, but with red should plates. His helmet, which was resting on computer console next to him, had a red centurion plume. His left hand held what reminded him of a Gungan energy shield. It was much more high tech-looking than it rustic predecessor. His right hand held a coffee cup. He took a sip from the coffee cup and said calmly and arrogantly, "What took you so long? I had time to get a fresh cup." Then the next actions happened so fast he could only catch it because he was a Jedi: He tossed his coffee cup aside, put on the helmet, and ignited his short, one-handed lightsaber and his energy shield. This was apparently the signal to attack, as the guns belched forth their light and the those wielding lightsaber-like devices charged forward with the admiral in their wake.

  
  


Kras fell to his left, unable to block all the incoming shots. As the lightsabers collided, the electrical discharges provided a crackling feeling on his skin he hadn't felt at this magnitude since he and 5 other Jedi cadets sparred with Luke Skywalker a few weeks ago. As those with skill in The Forced paired off and dueled, the blaster fire lessened, for fear of shooting their own people. He heard the boom and crackling as Force Lightening discharged and the cries of one who was being flash fried on the inside. He found himself before one of those zombie officers. He didn't sense any Force Powers coming from her, but with all the interference the only thing he could sense for certain was the Admiral's immense power. She certainly didn't look like any type of Jedi, just a regular human wielding a blade meant for someone of far greater power. Her first stroke quickly dispelled any confidence he had. While not elegant, more like a stumbling lunge, it was powerful; he barely parried it. Stroke after stroke were fast, powerful, and were either met with weak parries or outright dodges. After being forced back a few meters, and being unable to mount any sort of offensive, he realized it was time for fresh tactics. She wasn't co-ordinated, just strong. He leaped backward a few steps and pulled her with The Force towards him. Unable to block it, she rushed forward. He just pointed his lightsaber far in front of him, and she was pulled onto it. 

  
  


Quickly he took a look around. Two Jedis were dealing with the battle droids and officers carrying blasters. There weren't too many in the bridge, so the sides were fairly balanced. He saw the Admiral wince in pain for a second, but nothing had touched him, curious. It was just a second and he threw a fireball at the nearest Jedi, incinerating him. Fire?! That was something he hadn't seen a Jedi, light or dark, do before. Most of the dueling was taking place to his right, so found himself in the sights of a battle droid. He couldn't block the torrent fire coming from the droid, so he did a series of leaps and rolls to evade it. All those acrobatics put him behind a surprised Stormtrooper. Quickly, he punched a hole in the armor, gripped it, and raised the Stormtrooper slightly off the ground. Using him as a human shield, he charged the droid. With a chop of the lightsaber he killed two birds with one stone. Tossing the body aside, he saw that he had gotten the attention of a quite a few of the blaster wielding officers and Stormtroopers. He didn't have time for these guys, he wasn't needed back dueling Sith. After deflecting the first volley, a few Force Pushes sent them off their feet. With a burst of speed, he charged at the nearest Sith.

  
  


That turned out to be the one in the Vader armor with the lightpike. He already had two Jedi in front of him. That weapon, that lightpike, had a such a reach, from 3 meters back he did a swing at them. Impossibly slow, but with incredible momentum it was blocked by the Jedi. Well, kinda blocked. There was so much momentum behind the swing, despite the resistance of the lightsaber, both weapons cut through the Jedi. Once it cleared the first Jedi, it just kept going and cut through the second Jedi who didn't expect it. Then slowly the lightpike turned to face him. That thing was slow, but unblockable. He'd just have to take advantage of the slowness to dodge.

With a Force powered leap he went right over the Dark Jedi and landed behind him. The lightpike was too heavy for him to lift it fast enough attack, and now it had to swing it 180 to attack him. He actually had time to pick where he was going to slice this guy in two. He picked to do so at the neck, clean and efficient. With that done, he turned his eye to the main target: Admiral Lerutan.

  
  


He already had two Jedis fighting him. He wasn't pulling off any fancy acrobatics or athletics, but he was still fast and quite agile in the armor. Make that one Jedi fighting him, the other one had just met the short lightsaber that the admiral was wielding. He charged right in. Finish this now and hopefully forever. Even though he was charging from behind the admiral, his face met the energy shield. His teeth now aching, he proceeded to duel. Overhead chop, side slash, thrust, underhanded swing were all parried by the admiral, who was rapidly turning, so he was in effect facing both Jedis at once. Yet another Jedi joined in the fight. The rest of the Dark Jedis were proving no match for Luke Skywalker trained Jedis. Three on one, and the best opportunity to get past his defenses took 20 strokes to arrive. It was a diagonal slice when Lerutan's lightsaber and shield were busy with the other two Jedis. He tried to physical dodged it, but it glanced off his shoulder plate, sending sparks into the air, and leaving an unsightly molten streak on the perfectly polished armor. The admiral grunted in pain, and the grunt was echoed by several voices around him. He resisted the temptation to look and see why. Lerutan had slipped, and he was not about to slip again. He got even faster, letting the Force power his speed. 

  
  


All three of them couldn't land another blow. The admiral then killed one right before he heard Clifford let out a yell and came charging in. He wasn't wielding a normal lightsaber like the rest were, he had picked up the lightpike and was charging forward as fast as could keeping the point toward Lerutan's back. He and the other Jedi leaped out of the way, and the admiral tried unsuccessfully dodge. With his back still to the pike, it put a large gash in his right side, and then tore through the armor as he dodged to the left. He winced, louder than his previous grunt, which was again echoed by others in the room. As Clifford continued forward and passed the admiral, he was incinerated by a blast from Lerutan. He then proceeded to use The Force to send the lightpike spinning upwards and going right through the ceiling. Then his posture... relaxed. He heard several bewildered statements around him, and he couldn't help but to look. He was that one of the officers that had been resembling a zombie was back to normal. He was looking puzzled at the lightsaber he no longer knew how to use. He dropped it and took out his blaster pistol. What the heck was going on here?

  
  


He turned back to learn what grievous error he had just made. He took his eye off what was the most powerful Sith in the galaxy. He saw the hand wielding the lightsaber and the felt the Force Push that hit him. He was sent back flying through the air, dropping his lightsaber. He then slammed into the wall, heard some dull cracks, which he assumed were his ribs, and slowly slid down to a the ground, resting in a sitting position. He was lucky actually. He should have been killed by a stroke from the admiral, instead he got blow that knocked him out of the skirmish, and should have killed him. But it didn't, however he faked it. That wasn't very hard considering how his body now felt. Keeping his eyes open a slit, he remained motionless, using The Force to slowly heal himself.

  
  


That's when Runne, still alive, came running towards him, intent on healing him, or at very least check if he was dead. With only one arm, he couldn't use a lightsaber properly, and thus had abandoned it. That wasn't smart, that was a Jedi's best defense. That readily proved itself when Runne ran into a series of blaster shots. He could tell by the way he slumped forward that he was already dead. He groaned to himself as more pain and rage welled up inside. He liked Runne, he was an excellent conversationalist, a very comical person to be around. Steeling himself he surveyed the situation. His years fighting The Empire had taught him to ignore to personal feelings, however painful. Most of the Stormtroopers and officers were dead. All the battle droids lay in ruins. The Dark Jedis were no match for the Lukeskywalker trained Jedis, but had the advantage of numbers, however that advantage was rapidly disappearing. The two remaining Sith in Darth Vader armor were still around, and had a noticeable advantage over the Jedi who facing, who he counted as 8 remaining, not including himself.

  
  


He watched the Dark Jedi with the two arm blades for a few seconds. He (tentatively he assumed it was male, since he no way of telling the gender under the armor) was wounded. The armor was molten in several places, and was breathing quite heavily. Either well disciplined or unaware, he continued fighting against a Jedi, Nyr, from the look of it. The arm blades had short range, but could moving very quickly. Nyr was on the defense. Then Nyr's blade locked with one of the Dark Jedi's blades. He moved forward to deliver the killing blow to Nyr, but instead did a jump kick to another Jedi was coming up to his side, launched himself in the air, toward yet another Jedi, Amat, who was already in the air, flying towards him. The two took a series of slices at each other as they passed midair. He landed in one piece, Amat landed over a length of several meters, in several pieces. Upon landing the remaining two Jedi rushed to engage him. His response was to spin rapidly, creating in effect, a disc around him of his lightsabers, threatening to cut anyone who dared to come too close. Nyr's move was tactically brilliant: He threw his lightsaber underneath the spinning blades, cutting him in two at the abdomen. 

  
  


Those two Jedis then spoke quickly to each other and then rushed over to fight the admiral. Lerutan was now surrounded by 5 Jedis. He was now going much faster than before. When he was dueling him, he knew that Lerutan was using The Force to speed his movements, as he did too. Right now he was using The Force to speed his movement so quickly that they were a blur, even to him. He only knew Luke to channel The Force to raise his speed by that much, for a such a long duration. They really could of used Luke here. He would be on par with the admiral. Well at least he was in his X-Wing, taking out some Imperials right now. Still it was such foobar that Luke wasn't here right now. Lerutan had only his short lightsaber and an oval shield about 1.5 meters high, but none of the Jedis could land a stroke. Had it been ancient times, the Admiral would have been said to have encased in an impenetrable and invisible dome of steel around him. Any slice from the front, the side, from behind, or even from above was parried. At least Lerutan was on the defensive, and burning tremendous amounts of energy. He could almost feel the room get more humid, as that black and red figure continued his frenzy. 

  
  


That was when he felt it. The largest disturbance in The Force he could remember, far much more than anything he had imagined possible. The admiral was charging up for something big, really big. Lerutan's body when rigid from a split second... and then lightening burst forth from his entire body, wrapping around the Jedis surrounding him. Writhing, they all fell to the floor. Normally, Force lightning was emitted from a single hand, in a limited arc. Lerutan had just released lightning from his body, in a 360 arc! He never heard of any Sith capable of this. Even Luke's tale of Palpatine had the former emperor launching lightening in a small arc. To provide a limit to the fear and hopelessness he was feeling, the lightning hadn't killed the Jedis, though he sure bet they were in more pain then they had ever felt before. The admiral also appeared quite drained. That didn't stop him from slowly walking over and finishing off the fallen Gras with his lightsaber. Then he calmly walked over and killed Nyr in the same way.

  
  


He now felt the rage spilling over, it had just reached its boiling point. He didn't care if he wasn't fully healed yet. He didn't care that he didn't stand a chance. He didn't care if he could still escape. All that ran through his mind was that he was going to kill that man, before he cruelly killed anymore of his friends! He sprang to his feet and used The Force to pull a lightsaber from a fallen Dark Jedi into his hands. He than rushed at the admiral with an animal fury. 

  
  


He never reached Lerutan though. Mid-stride the bridge shook so violently that all inside were knocked off their feet. Snapping out of the rage, hope came back for a moment. The shields had dropped! That was the feeling of the ship being pounded by the full weight of the Rebel Alliance! The hope then faded as quickly as it had arisen; he was almost out of time. The Rebels were in a win-win situation: If Lerutan dies by Jedi hands, they win. If Lerutan dies when the ship buckles under, they win.

  
  


The admiral was back on his feet before he himself had even hit the floor. "Computer, activate self destruct sequence, five minute delay," the admiral's heavily muffled and winded voice came from within the helmet. What was trying to do anyway, ensure a Rebel victory?

  
  


"That voice pattern is not recognized, security has been alerted to your position," the monotone computer voice came back.

  
  


The admiral was ticked off. He tossed aside his helmet revealing a red, sweaty face. "Computer, activate self destruct sequence, five minute delay!"

  
  


"State authorization code."

  
  


"AlphaGriffinGammaHades49584832ImperiumPysche495KamehaehaDelta4856AndA1/3Idiotic-SonOfAnOrcEplisonCoruscantHothZeusZebraOrangutanFoxtrotBlueJadeMonkey138548650.69-BlackOmega." Quite winded, he nearly doubled over.

  
  


"Authorization code invalid."

  
  


"Computer, activate self destruct sequence, five minute delay!" Now he was in a full blow rage. He was spraying saliva in the general direction of the ceiling.

  
  


"State authorization code."

  
  


"I (expletive)ing said so!"

  
  


"Authorization code accepted. Ship will self destruct in five minuets. Now in 4:57."

  
  


"Computer, discontinue audio transmissions."

  
  


"State authorization code." Rage returning, he pointed his lightsaber wielding hand at the nearest speaker and shot lightening into it. Looked like enough to short out the audio system for quite a distance. It suddenly dawned on him why the admiral was doing this. The ship was going down one way or another. The Rebels weren't expecting a self destruct, so when it exploded it would take a lot of Rebel ships with it. But how did Lerutan expect to live through it?

  
  


By now everybody else had gotten to their feet. Lerutan was in no mood to fight them all until his death one way or another. He scrunched his face and then every Imperial in the room went rigid and their eyes glazed over. They then charged at the Jedis, while Lerutan made his escape. He finally put two and two together and realized this was the fabled mind control Lerutan was capable of. He wasn't going to let him get away. Igniting his lightsaber, he cut right through a mind controlled officer and followed Lerutan out the door.

  
  


He had almost made it out when he felt something like a baseball bat slam into his leg. He fell to the floor as the pain coursed up through the leg. Using an arm to flip himself onto his back, he look at his leg and saw he had been shot. Looking up, he saw an officer with a blaster pistol pointed at him from the opposite side of the room. Before a second shot could be fired, a slice from a Jedi's lightsaber saved him. No time to heal, he painfully got back to his feet and limped after the admiral as fast as he could. This certainly must have been a pathetic chase. Lerutan was wearing heavy battle armor, wounded, fatigued and still draining due to the effort of mind control (which was holding the rest of the Jedis in the bridge). He wasn't even using The Force to speed his movements, he was going on normal muscle power. On the other hand, Lerutan didn't have a hole in his leg. He was limping along, just trying to keep Lerutan in his sight. His ribs hurt more than his arm did when it got sliced off a few months ago. At least he had one advantage, Lerutan didn't know he was being followed. 

  
  


As they went through corridor after corridor he heard something coming from an air duct above them. "Somebody help! I'm stuck! Why did somebody set the self destruct sequence? Hey! I know you're down there, I can hear the footsteps. I'm pinned with my lightsaber jammed into my gut. Hello somebody-." He ignored Harrus and kept struggling along. The lights flickered with every shot that slammed into the hull in their section. Like a ancient ship that sailed the sea, the floored rocked to and fro, he was barely able to keep his balance. Every time the ship rocked another wave of pain shot through his leg. 

  
  


It felt like an eternity, but they arrived to were the admiral's last hope lay: the escape pods. As Lerutan stopped at to look where there any open pods, he heard him coming. The admiral turned around and saw him. "Are you still here?" With that a motion of the hand pulled his lightsaber from his hands. Still midair, the admiral used his own lightsaber to destroy his. Then he relaxed and (he guessed) released the other Imperial from his control. Using some of the energy he was expending to maintain control, Lerutan shoved him using The Force against the wall. He then holstered his lightsaber and turn off his shield, flinging it aside. The admiral then began running along the wall searching for a pod. Most of the pods had already been launched by the crew. Some in their haste had only gone one per pod, instead of the usual dozen it could contain. The few that remained were damaged beyond use due to battle raging outside. 

  
  


By no means was he left alone. He still felt the admiral's Force power on him. Then as a vent of Lerutan's growing frustrations he flung him from wall to wall. He had become the human pinball. Still keeping an eye on Lerutan, he saw him pounding on a console, no doubt trying to find an undamaged, unlaunched pod in a nearby section. Finally, he came to rest after another slam to the floor. The admiral turned to face him, he was smiling. He must of found the pod he was looking for. He could still make it out.

  
  


Unable to move, his body a broken shadow of its former self, he uttered, 

"Life is nothing but death in disguise,

It's a rule, everything dies,

Everything rots, everything decays,

Nothing born ever stays."

  
  


It was something he had thought up on one of the many night patrols he had been on. He has been fighting straight for 8 years; he knew he couldn't fight anymore. 

  
  


"What the heck does that mean?" Lerutan said towering above him.

  
  


"It means turn around and look out a window." Before a pod launched, a door shut to prevent a hole in the hull when the pod did launch. Each door had a window in it. Through it he could see the looming shape of the Flashpoint, the Rebel flag ship. Rebel capital ships looked much different than their Imperial counterparts. Him it looked like the skeleton of giant fish, painted pale green. It was so close he could see almost see down one of the fore mounted ion cannons. They were pointed right the pod bays. Everything went into slow motion. The red beam of energy first slowly rose to the cannon's lip, then it grew in intensity as it gathered power. Then it discharged, and all he could see through the windows was red. As the room filled with fire, and metal shards were blown back from hull the last thing he heard were the admiral's last words, "Noooooo, myyyyyyy peeeennnssssssiiioooonnnnnnnn!"

  
  


Remus was covered in a cold sweat as he enter the shield generator room, passing the knot of dead Jedis and Sith. The security squad before him had eliminated the last Jedi. The shields were down and he was the only person in the section that knew how work the shield generator. He look at the console and stated, "There's nothing mechanically wrong with the generator! Somebody just turned it off!" With the press of a few buttons the shield generator started humming and crackling as it slowly came back to life. He'd just saved the butts of everyone on this ship. "Send a transmission to the admiral. The shields are back up, he can cancel the self destruct seq-" He never finished the sentence. A string of explosions occurred as the timer on self destruct sequence ran out, and the Aetius blew itself apart.


	12. Dust In The Wind

Star Wars: The Parody Strikes Back

  
  


Part Twelve

  
  


Coruscant was a dying world. Skyscrapers so large that from the middle you could not see the top or the base were toppled, crumbled. Dust from the fusion explosions had sent enormous amounts of dust and debris into the atmosphere, that blocked most of the sun during the day. During the night the diffraction of the particles reflected some of the sunlight hitting the other side of the world, bathing the world in perpetual twilight all day long. Blue pockets of poisonous gas settled into low areas. A cold wind always blew strong, stirring up the dust still on the ground. This was still a free world though, and these ruins were their's. The remains of all the ships destroyed near Coruscant were slowly drifting closer and closer into orbit, one by one crashing into the planet. During his service in the Alliance military, Major Kirag had seen his fair share of devastation, but nothing on such a horrific scale. In a full tenth of the planet's surface way in rubble that measure 100's of meters deep. He had image after image on his workpad showed the aftermath of the colossal battle. 

  
  


But to get the most effective image, he just had to look past the rest of the Rebels lying in their beds in the hospital room and out the window. He was in one of the remaining hospitals on Coruscant. During the battle he had been in the bridge on The Flashpoint. It, and the rest of its platoon, along with at least 5 squadron of strike-craft had punched a hole in the Imperial line and headed straight for The Aetius. He was only the rank of major, but the admiral trusted him, and let him into areas that only higher ranks should be. To everyone's surprise on the bridge, the Jedis had accomplished their mission, and the shields dropped on the Aetius. Admiral Jerad had then ordered the methodical destruction of the Aetius: weapons, then engines, escape pods, life support, and finally the reactors. He only got as far as the escape pods when the shields came back up, followed by the ship self destructing. Clearly there was a lack of communications among the crew. The final explosion of The Aetius was powerful enough to destroy all the strike-craft, destroy half of the Rebel capital ship platoon, cripple The Flashpoint, and destroy several other Imperial ships nearby. Nobody had expected the ship to self destruct, it had been the one flaw in Admiral Jerad's plan, and it had cost him his life. Most of the crew's lives too. 

  
  


It had been that explosion that had injured him greatly: Broken ribs, busted lung, ruined kidney, the burning all hair below the neck, pretty well everything on the left leg was broken, a sprained ankle for the right leg, damaged digestive track, and his left eye ruined. After the surgery the doctor had tried to explain that they couldn't save his second stomach. Alien doctors, they didn't know that much about human anatomy, but there were so many wounded, and so few of them. Many had been assembled beforehand, in a nearby system to wait for the battle to end, but we had not expected casualties on this scale. He was a Major and had barely gotten a bed. They were giving beds to any that needed them. Civilians, grunts and officers were all in the room. During the operation, they had replaced many of his organs, his left leg and eye with machines. The doctor had commented that his checkup should be done by a mechanic, instead of a doctor. His bedside manner needed some improvement.

  
  


To take his mind off his own condition, he studied the reports of the battle. Not exactly light reading, but somebody had to do it. Most of Rebel Command was dead or in worse shape than he was. His arms were fine except for the occasional shrapnel scratch, and was holding his workpad. The image on it was a scene of wreckage: Blocks of concrete and twisted metal lay over a ground level building, somehow still recognizable. The sign read "Gulanya's Insurance." The reason the picture was on the workpad was in the foreground, a squad of Stormtroopers, dazed and bewildered, abandoned on a hostile planet, a ruined At-At behind them. It was there to remind him that there were still Imperial remnants on the planet. He already had a good idea what it was like out there. This previous experience gave a fairly clear picture. It would be quiet, and the silence would only be broken occasionally as the crunching, stumbling footsteps of someone calling out for someone they lost. A still standing piece of building would get too lonely, and fall down to join its companions. A burst of blaster fire when a pocket of Imperial were discovered and want to go to a prison camp, or those that found them did not feel like taking prisoners.

  
  


He'd already knew fairly well what had happened the last few weeks. He had been planning the defense of Coruscant with the rest of Rebel Command. It had been Admiral Jerad that had proposed the Jedis' suicide mission. His reasoning was the Jedis were too volatile to keep around. Typically, a Jedi was trained from infancy to control his powers. Luke had found these new recruits in their teens or older, so it was too late to teach them everything they needed to know. Some of them had gone through a second childhood once they realized the powers they now possessed, and were unruly. Others had been fighting the Empire, and had become too familiar with death, and were already half turned to the Dark Side. Luke himself was not fully trained, rather unstable, and developing an alcohol problem. Jerad had reasoned that the only way Dark Jedis are created are from Jedis turning evil. That was simple enough. So if you eliminated all the Jedis, the Dark Jedis would disappear when the current ones died. But how do you keep Dark Jedis from running amok when there is no one to counter them? Why not get the Light and Dark to wipe each other out and break the cycle once and for all? Thus the suicide mission was born. The only flaw in it was that Luke Skywalker could not participate. If he did, and lived, many of his students would too. If he died than the morale blow to the Rebels would be enormous, so Luke could not go. For all the planning, it had been almost perfect, for some Jedis had not been on Coruscant to be ordered on the mission. He'd seen reports that when the Rhodians revolted on Ru, there had been a Jedi assisting them. There couldn't been too many errant Jedis out there, but there could be Dark Jedi's out there too. At least they had no idea what treachery had transpired, so they could be sent on another mission. Luke, now without his following, had less power and would be watched very closely. He was pleased with Luke's performance in the battle, he had destroyed 11 Tie Fighters and 2 Imperial Gunboats. That was enough to get a medal, he'd sure to get that right after we'd tell him of the fate of his students. This was war, and sacrifices needed to be made for the greater good.

  
  


Before he could continue reviewing the past few weeks, something caught his attention in the room. A butterfly had flown threw a window that never should have been open. Silver and Black so it blended in with the buildings, it was the most beautiful scene he had seen in a long time. A scene that lasted a whole 5 seconds, when a Larsian shot out his tongue and ate the butterfly. "What? It tastes better than hospital food," the Larsian said to his glaring eyes. Off to his side, a human was playing with a machine carelessly left beside his bed. Judging from the remains of his uniform that weren't cut off, he was an X-Wing pilot. The name on it read 'Guo Xi,' the rank had been cut off. The device he was fiddling around with was marked 'Cardio Stimulator.' He gave the pilot a stiff verbal warning. The pilot obeyed, but before long this inquisitive pilot was holding up a bottle of medicine, "Zarathan 125? What happened to the poor souls who took Zarathan 1-124?" He had to quell a burst of laughter, it hurt too much to laugh. The number on the bottle was the density of the formula, or the weight of the active ingredient, or something. It was not how many tries it took a formula to pass the humanoid tests... or at least he hoped it wasn't.

  
  


Back to the review now. The battle itself had been a draw. The battle that was supposed to decide the fate of the galaxy one way or another had just ensured that the war would last another 20 years! It had gone wrong for the rebellion when they fell for the simple ruse. Sending ships to battle it out around the outer planets, while a main force made a march straight for the objective. This also rendered their carefully laid minefield useless. It was supposed to be the Rebellion that tricked The Empire. As soon as the two massive fleet began duking it out, it became clear that we were outgunned. All those reports of the corvette hull class Imperial Gunboats tracking and firing simultaneously at multiple targets with its 8 turrets were painfully shown again and again on The Flashpoint's screen. Without the Imperials waiting for a clear path to the surface they launched their assault pods. A calculated risk, speed was an advantage they couldn't afford to waste. Several pods had been destroyed on the way down, but the Imperials landed and began to invade the planet.

  
  


And what an invasion it had been. The whole planet was a city, and therefore an excellent defensive position, if not for the collateral damage. Snipers in the buildings firing on funneled troops in the streets. Average citizen taking up arms (or using the ones they already had in the rougher neighborhoods) ensuring a fight for every room. Imperial air support only able to strafe entire areas rather than making their usual pinpoint strikes. The Imperials had ways to get around those advantages. First off, they had sheer numbers. An estimated 3 billion heavily armed Stormtroopers and thousands of mechanized pieces ensured them a firepower advantage over the Rebels, even with their militia. Their ships from orbit added to the firepower advantage. Tactical Fusion bombs and poison gas were liberally rained down on the planet, hitting more civilians than military targets. Another tactic when faced with a heavily fortified skyscraper was to get an mechanical unit to fire at its base and bring the entire thing down. That had only added to the destruction on the planet. As the Imperial beach head expanded to cover close to 10% of the planet in a matter of hours, they paid a horrible price, somewhere between a 5 - 1 to a 10 - 1 casualty ratio. While in around the planet, it was the Rebels losing ships at a 3 - 1 ratio. The number of civilians killed would never by exactly known, be he estimated something with 13 digits.

  
  


When the Rebel ships that had been fighting around the outer planets returned to the main fleet, Admiral Jerad had made an assault straight to the Aetius, which wasn't as desperate as it sounded. With the new ships coming in, the Rebels easily held the numerical advantage. Considering the rate that the Imperials were chewing up their squadrons, that advantage may not have lasted long. When they broke through and attacked the Aetius, to their surprise the shields fell. So those Jedis had actually accomplished their mission. Our reward to them would be to blast them to the afterlife. The great undoing of all the planning, the trickery, the organization was The Aetius self destructing. In retrospect it seemed obvious. It had a been momentary lapse in the normally brilliant Admiral Jerad. One small mistake and it was all over. The secondary explosions that ran throughout The Flashpoint killed most of the crew, but the ship held together. The Admiral had not died quickly. He stayed on the bridge the entire time, still ordering around the fleet. Many people had requested to know his last words. At the time he was lying on the floor, in an extraordinary amount of pain, with a medic jabbing him with some device, so he couldn't hear that well. To him the last words sounded like, "Thirsty, I'm so very thirsty." He probably hadn't heard it right anyway. If he had, it was certainly not something he'd want recorded, they weren't fitting last words for an brilliant admiral. 

  
  


The reaction of the two opposing fleets losing their command staff was immediate. Unsure of what was happening, they backed off and regrouped. He'd heard rumors of Star Destroyer captains so jittery that they'd shoot a blinking light that startled them. These one certainly weren't jittery. After a few minutes of quiet, the Imperials on Coruscant began to retreat back to the pods. Once there, they took off and abandoned their bid to conquer the planet. Not about to let the Imperials get away, the Rebel's fleet attacked the pods, while the Imperial fleet attempted to escort them back to their Star Destroyers. After the surviving pods were loaded, they retreated away from the Rebels, loaded up their Tie Fighters and Imperial Gunboats, and Hyperspaced out of the system.

  
  


The media would play this as a huge victory. The massive Imperial armada failed in it's assault on Coruscant. The reality was much grayer. First off, both sides had lost nearly all of their senior officers. The Rebels had lost theirs in the Boba Fett raid, and aboard The Flashpoint. The Imperials had all lost their aboard The Aetius. There were only 3 dozen survivors aboard escape pods. The officers were Lieutenant Magnus, Corporal Janus, Sargent Theodore, and Sargent Zofsky. They'd have to been interrogated heavily to learn just what happened aboard The Aetius. Half of the 3 billion Imperial ground forces were destroyed en route to the planet, fighting on the planet, and trying to get back to their Star Destroyers that had launched them. Most of their heavy machines were too slow, and were abandoned on the surface. If this had been a raid, they had accomplished their mission. Coruscant lay in ruins. Some horrendous destruction, but relief and reconstruction crews were preassembled and already working on the planet. It would take decades to rebuild though. The fighting above the planet had favored the Imperials. Though outnumbered in total, they had managed to destroy a fair chunk of the Rebel fleet. In the end, both fleets lay decimated, mere shadows of their former glory.

  
  


The aftermath of this battle would be far different than we had expected beforehand. The Empire's destruction had been hastened, since now they lacked the ground forces to maintain their stranglehold on many of their worlds. The Rebels had lost many of their finest, but seeing the fate of The Empire, would rejoice. He expected that the cries for a New Republic would get louder. That would cause friction with the remaining Rebel leaders. The war would still rage on, and while it lasted it needed a strong military command, not the bureaucracy that doomed the Old Republic. Most of the civilians, believing the war was over, would demand a more democratic style of government. Unless he and the remaining Rebel leaders treaded lightly, their could be massive unrest, or even civil war in the Rebel Alliance. Many worlds thinking the war was over would declare independence. He could already see The Empire and The Rebellion growing smaller as more and more worlds broke away. He believed that many of the these worlds wouldn't be much better off than Imperial rule. They would resist joining any alliance or league once they went independent. When the war was over, and The Rebel Alliance became the New Republic, then they would refuse to join. That means that the Rebels would have to keep these worlds under them before they broke away; one way or another. 

  
  


The Emperor's palace had been badly damaged, so the Rebels headquarters would need to be moved. Sigh, their previous base on Endor's moon was being bombarded the debris of the first Deathstar. That was one of the reasons they left. Still it was better than the ruins of Coruscant. Back to the moon of those Ewok size mosquitoes, unreliable plumbing, and wilting heat and humidity. At least there the sun would shine more than here. With most of the Rebel Command dead, he would almost certainly be promoted. Captain or Commander Kirag, he liked that, he liked that a lot. With any luck, his office would not be the mens' room as it had been here. He was hoping for at least for a walk-in supply closet back on Endor. Note to self: Restart hydro generator that powers the bug zappers as soon as you arrive.

  
  


At that moment Luke barged into the room. His face no longer resembled the innocent farmer boy fighting for a just cause. His face burned with all the anger that a Jedi should not feel. His arms were actually quivering slightly. "So how did you like the effects of your little plan? Did you anticipate that all these homes would be destroyed?! An entire planet, the most populated one in the entire galaxy, with trillions of people, wrecked! What right do you have to through away the lives of my students, who could have been so much more?!" 

  
  


Luke's hand shot out and he felt an iron hand clasping around his throat. He was lifted with The Force until he almost touched a ceiling. Several patient's meters went wild from the spectacle, and the intercom rang out, "Code Blue. Code Blue." He just discovered a flaw in the bedpan system, albeit in a situation the creators had certainly never anticipated: having the most powerful warrior in known history having a choke-hold on you, threatening death.

  
  


Unable to speak, Luke continued his tirade, "Do you have any idea what you've done?! The chosen few who could have brought peace to the galaxy are gone! I'd have to spend the rest of my life just to find even a half dozen more! So how do you like you're little plan now? You caused this devastation, now you're going to help me fix it. We've going to fix this entire rotten, corrupt galaxy."

  
  


He could barely hear another voice in the air as soon as Luke stopped speaking, and let him fall to the floor. It was unmistakable, it was the voice of Darth Vader. "Excellent my son, embrace The Dark Side (wheeze). Your hope is failing, so let the anger power you. (wheeze) (wheeze) (cough) (cough) (hack) (wheeze) I'm okay, I'm okay. So you've finally come to the realization that there is no good,(wheeze) only evil wearing the guise of being good and just. They're all the same (wheeze), greedy, arrogant. You can not change this, so strike out on your own. Cup your hands into the river and drink your fill. You have finally realized this. (cough) It's about frickin' time!"

  
  



End file.
